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BY ARTHUR WEIGALL 


TUTANKHAMEN AND OTHER ESSAYS 
THE GLORY OF THE PHARAOHS 


THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AKHNATON, PHARAOH OF 
EGYPT 


A REPORT ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF LOWER NUBIA 


A CATALOGUE OF THE WEIGHTS AND BALANCES IN 
THE CAIRO MUSEUM 


TRAVELS IN THE UPPER EGYPTIAN DESERTS 
A HISTORY OF EGYPT FROM 1798 To 1914 
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 
PAGANISM IN OUR CHRISTIANITY 

THE KING WHO PREFERRED MOONLIGHT 
THE LADY FROM HELL 

FLIGHTS INTO ANTIQUITY 

NERO 


THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
CLEOPATRA 





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CLEOPATRA 








THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 


CLEOPATRA 


QUEEN OF EGYPT 


A STUDY IN THE ORIGIN OF THE 
ROMAN EMPIRE 


BY 


ARTHUR WEIGALL 


Late Inspector General of Antiquities, Government of Egypt, 
and Member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum 
Officer of the Order of Medjidieh 


NEW AND REVISED EDITION 


G.P.Putnam’s Sons 
New York & London 
The Rnickerbocker Dress 


Copyright, 1924 
by 
Arthur Weigall 


First printing, April, 1924 
Second printing, November, 1924 
Third printing, January, 1925 
Fourth printing, June, 1925 

Fifth printing, September, 1925 
Sixth printing, February, 1926 
Seventh printing, March, 1928 
Eighth printing, September, 1930 


All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must 
not be reproduced in any form without permission. 


J 





Made in the United States of America 


INTRODUCTION 


I have no expectation that any man will read history aright 
who thinks that what was done in a remote age . . . has any 
deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.— Emerson. 


In the following pages it will be observed that, in 
order not to distract the reader, I have refrained from 
adding large numbers of notes and references. It has 
seemed to me unnecessary to encumber the pages in 
this manner, since the sources of my information are all 
so well known; and I have thus been able to present the 
book to the reader in a style consonant with a principle 
of historical writing to which I have always endeavoured 
to adhere—namely, the elimination, in public, of as 
many of one’s working notes as may be discarded with- 
out real loss. A friend of mine, an eminent scholar, in 
discussing with me the scheme of this volume, earnestly 
exhorted me on the present occasion not to abide by 
this principle. Remarking that the trouble with my 
interpretation of history was that I attempted to make 
the characters live, he urged me to balance this uncon- 
ventional treatment of the past by printing as many 
notes as possible, relevant or otherwise, and by smat- 
tering my text with Latin and Greek words and quota- 


tions. I trust, however, that he was speaking in behalf 


IV INTRODUCTION 


of a very small company, for the sooner this traditional 
jargon of scholarship is discarded, the better will it be 
for the public education. To my mind a knowledge of 
the past is so necessary to a happy mental poise that it 
seems absolutely essential for historical studies to be 
placed before the general reader in a manner sympathet- 
ic to him. “History,” said Emerson, “no longer shall 
be a dull book. It shall walk mcarnate in every just 
and wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and 
titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You 
shall make me feel what periods you have lived.” 

Such has been my attempt in the following pages; 
and, though I am so conscious of my literary limitations 
that I doubt my ability to place the reader in touch with 
past events, I must confess to a sense of gladness that I, 
at any rate, with almost my whole mind, have lived for 
a time in the company of the men and women of long 
ago of whom these pages tell. 

Any of my readers who think that my interpreta- 
tion of the known incidents here recorded is open to 
question, may easily check my statements by reference 
to the classical authors. The sources of information 
are available at any big library. They consist of Plut- 
arch, Cicero, Suetonius, Dion Cassius, Appian, “De 
Bello Alexandrino,”’ Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Livy, 
Velleius Paterculus, Seneca, Lucan, Josephus, Pliny, 
Dion Chrysostum, Tacitus, Florus, Lucian, Athenzeus, 
Porphyry, and Orosius. Of modern writers reference 
should be made_ to Ferrero’s Greatness and Decline 
of Rome, Bouché-Leclercq’s Histoire des Lagides, 
Mahaffy’s Empire of the Ptolemies, Mommsen’s History 


INTRODUCTION Vv 


¥ 


of Rome, Strack’s Dynastie der Ptolemaer, and Sergeant’s 
Cleopatra of Egypt. There are also, of course, very 
large numbers of works on special branches of the sub- 
ject, which the reader will, without much difficulty, dis- 
cover for himself. 

In the case of Cleopatra the biographer may ap- 
proach his subject from one of several directions. He 
may, for example, regard the Queen of Egypt as a 
thoroughly bad woman, or as an irresponsible sinner, or 
as a moderately good woman in a difficult situation. 
In this book it is my object to point out the difficulty of 
the situation, and to realise the adverse circumstances 
against which the queen had to contend; and by so 
doing a fairer complexion will be given to certain ac- 
tions which otherwise must inevitably be regarded as 
darkly sinful. Fortunately, a biographer need not, as 
we so often must in regard to our contemporaries, make 
a clear distinction between good and bad, shunning the 
sinner that our intimates may not be contaminated. 
He may put himself in touch with distant crime and 
may attempt to apologise for it, without the charge 
being brought against him that in so doing he deviates 
from the stern path of moral rectitude. Intolerance is 
the simple expedient of contemporaneous society; the 
historian may show his distaste for wrong-doing by 
other means. We dare not always excuse the sins of 
our fellows; but the wreck of times past, the need of 
reconstruction and rebuilding, gives the writer of his- 
tory and biography a certain option in the selection of 
the materials which he uses in the resuscitation of his 
characters. He holds a warrant from the Lord of the 


vl INTRODUCTION 


Ages to give them the benefit of the doubt; and if it be 
his whim to ignore this licence and to condemn whole- 
sale a character or a family, he sometimes loses, by a 
sort of perversion, the prerogative of his calling. More- 
over, the historian must examine from all sides the 
events which he is studying; and in regard to the sub- 
ject with which this volume deals he must be particu- 
larly careful not to direct his gaze upon it only from the 
point of view of the Imperial Court of Rome, which re- 
garded Cleopatra as the ancestral enemy of the dynasty. 
In dealing with history, says Emerson, “we, as we read, 
must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, 
martyr and executioner.” Even so, as we study the 
life of Cleopatra, we must set behind us that view of the 
case that was held by one section of humanity. In like 
manner we must rid ourselves of the influence of the 
thought of any one period, and must ignore that as- 
pect of morality which has been developed in us by 
contact with the age in which we have the fortune to 
live. Good and evil are relative qualities, defined very 
largely by public opinion; and it must always be re- 
membered that certain things which are considered to be 
correct to-day may have the denunciation of yesterday 
and to-morrow. We, as we read of the deeds of the 
Queen of Egypt, must doff our modern conception of 
right and wrong; and, as we pace the courts of the 
Ptolemies, and breathe the atmosphere of the first cen- 
tury before Christ, we must not commit the anachron- © 
ism of critising our surroundings from the standard of 
twenty centuries after Christ. It is, of course, ap- 
parent that to a great extent we must be influenced by 


INTRODUCTION Vii 


the thought of to-day; but the true student of history 
will make the effort to cast from him the shackles of his 
contemporaneous opinions, and to parade the bygone 
ages in the boundless freedom of a citizen of all time 
and a dweller in every land. 





CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION : , : , 2 ¢ B 5 lil 


PART I 
CLEOPATRA AND C#SAR 


CHAPTER 
I.—An IntrrRopuctory STuDY OF THE CHARACTER OF 


CLEOPATRA : : e 7 : : 3 
II.—Tue Criry or ALEXANDRIA : { : ur) 
IlI].—Tue Brirtu anp Earty YEARS OF CLEOPATRA . 44 


IV.—Tue Deatu or Pompey AND THE ARRIVAL OF 
CESAR IN Eqaypt : : : . ; 70 


V.—Cativus Juuius Cmsar ; ; ; : . 88 


VI.—CLEOPATRA AND CESAR IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 
AT ALEXANDRIA . : F : ‘ . 102 


VII.—Tue Birta or CHSARION AND C@SAR’S DEPAR- 
TURE FROM Eaypt ; , , : pee Ars 


VIII.—Ciereopatra AND CasSAR IN Rome E ; . 142 


IX.—Tue FounpatTIons OF THE Eaypto-Roman Mon- 
ARCHY £7 ae nae : : : . . 164 


X.—THE DEaTH OF CHSAR AND THE RETURN OF CLEO- 
PATRA TO Eaypt . : ‘ Z , . 190 
PART II 
CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 


XI.—Tuer CHARACTER OF ANTONY AND His RIsE To 
POWER : ; : , : me yy 
ix 


x CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
XI1.~—Tue ALLIANCE BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 


XITI.—CLEopAtRA AND ANTONY IN ALEXANDRIA 


XIV.—Tue ALLIANCE RENEWED BETWEEN CLEOPATRA 
AND ANTONY 


XV.—TueE PREPARATIONS OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 
FOR THE OVERTHROW OF OCTAVIAN 


XVI.—TuHE DEcLINE or ANTONY’S PowER . P ; 


XVII.—Tue Barrie or AcTIUM AND THE FLIGHT TO 
Eaypt 


XVITI.—CLrEopatra’s ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN . ( 


XIX.—OctTavian’s INVASION oF EGypt AND THE DEATH 
or ANTONY 


XX.—TuHeE Deatu or CLEOPATRA AND THE TRIUMPH OF 
OcTAVIAN . f A ‘ J 


INDEX . ‘ : . : A : 


GENEALOGY OF THE PTOLEMIES : ; 


PAGE 


240 


255 


273 


300 
325 


348 
375 


396 


415 
441 
444 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


CLEOPATRA ; ; : ; j Frontisprece 
British Museum. Photograph by Macbeth. 


PorTRAIT OF A GREEK LADY : E : ; ‘ 4 


The painting dates from a generation later than that of Cleopatra, 
but it ts an example of the work of the Alexandrian artists. 


Cairo Museum. Photograph by Brugsch. 


SerapPis: THe Curer Gop or ALEXANDRIA ¢ é . 40 


Alexandria Museum. 


PoMPEY THE GREAT : ‘ y ; : : . 64 
Rome. Photograph by Anderson. 


JULIUS CESAR : ; : ; i : 2 ide? OB 


British Museum. 


CLEOPATRA : : } , : : . - 152 
British Museum. Photograph by Macbeth. 


JULIUS CmSAR.. : ‘ ; ‘ : : . 168 
Vatican. Photograph by Anderson. 


ANTONY ‘ : : : 2 : ; ‘ Nera a 
Vatican. Photograph by Anderson. 


OcTAVIAN . ‘ : : i . . 280 
Vatican. Photograph by Anderson. 


ANTONIA, THE DAUGHTER OF ANTONY . 4 . eee 
British Museum. Photograph by Macbeth. 


CLEOPATRA AND HER Son CASARION 4 ° ; . 828 


Represented conventionally upon a wall of the Temple of Dendera. 


xi 


Xi ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 
CLEOPATRA ; é : ‘ 5 3 A - 876 
British Museum. Photograph by Macbeth. 
OcTAVIAN . : A : : ‘ A : - 400 
Glyptothek, Munich. Photograph by Bruckmann. 
THe NILE . ‘ : ; : : is A - 424 
An example of Alexandrian art. 
Vatican. Photograph by Anderson. 
MAPS AND PLANS 
ZEGYPTUS . : : : : : . : 4 16 
APPROXIMATE PLAN oF ALEXANDRIA IN THE TIME OF 
CLEOPATRA ‘ ; : : ; : Q4 
THE Known Wor tp In THE TIME OF CLEOPATRA : ; 32 
CLEOPATRA’s PossEssions IN RELATION TO THE RomMan 
WoRLpD : : , ; : y . 288 


A Map ILuLustrratine THE War BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND 
OcTAVIAN . a ; : é 2 - 852 


The Life and Times of Cleopatra 





PART I 
CLEOPATRA AND C/ESAR 












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CHAPTER I 


AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY OF THE CHARACTER OF 
CLEOPATRA 


To those who make a close inquiry into the life of 
Cleopatra it will speedily become apparent that the 
generally accepted estimate of her character was placed 
before the public by those who sided against her in re- 
gard to the quarrel between Antony and Octavian. 
During the last years of her life the great Queen of 
Egypt became the mortal enemy of the first of the 
Roman Emperors, and the memory of her historic hos- 
tility was perpetuated by the supporters of every Ceesar 
of that dynasty. Thus the beliefs now current as to 
Cleopatra’s nefarious influence upon Julius Cesar and 
Marc Antony are, in essence, the simple abuse of her 
opponents; nor has history preserved to us any record 
of her life set down by one who was her partisan in the 
great struggle in which she so bravely engaged herself. 
It is a noteworthy fact, however, that the writer who 
is most fair to her memory, namely, the inimitable 
Plutarch, appears to have obtained much of his informa- 
tion from the diary kept by Cleopatra’s doctor, Olympus. 
I do not presume in this volume to offer any kind of 


apology for the much-maligned queen, but it will be my 
3 


Li LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


object to describe the events of her troubled life in such 
a manner that her aims, as I understand them, may be 
fairly placed before the reader; and there can be little 
doubt that, if I succeed in giving plausibility to the 
speculations here advanced, the actions of Cleopatra 
will, without any particular advocacy, assume a char- 
acter which, at any rate, is no uglier than that of every 
other actor in this strange drama. 

The injustice, the adverse partiality, of the attitude 
assumed by classical authors will speedily become ap- 
parent to all unbiased students; and a single instance of 
this obliquity of judgment is all that need be mentioned 
here to illustrate my contention. I refer to the original 
intimacy between Cleopatra and Julius Cesar. Ac- 
cording to the accepted view of historians, both ancient 
and modern, the great Dictator is supposed to have 
been led astray by the voluptuous Egyptian, and to 
have been detained in Alexandria, against his better 
judgment, by the wiles of this Siren of the East. At 
this time, however, as will be seen in due course, Cleo- 
patra, “the stranger for whom the Roman half-brick 
was never wanting,’? was actually an unmarried girl 
of some twenty-one years of age, against whose moral 
character not one shred of trustworthy evidence can be 
advanced; while, on the other hand, Ceesar was an 
elderly man who had ruined the wives and daughters of 
an astounding number of his friends, and whose reputa- 
tion for such seductions was of a character almost past 
belief. How anybody, therefore, who has the known 
facts before him, can attribute the blame to Cleopatra 


tSergeant: Cleopatra of Egypt. 





Cairo Museum | tn Photograph by Brugsch 
PORTRAIT OF A GREEK LADY 


THE PAINTING DATES FROM A GENERATION LATER THAN THAT OF CLEOPATRA, 
BUT IT IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE WORK OF THE ALEXANDRIAN ARTISTS 








THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA 5 


In this instance must become altogether incomprehen- 
sible to any student of the events of that time. I do not 
intend to represent the Queen of Egypt as a particu- 
larly exalted type of her sex, but an attempt will be 
made to deal justly with her, and by giving her on 
occasion, as in a court of law, the benefit of the doubt, I 
feel assured that the reader will be able to see in her a 
very good average type of womanhood. Nor need I, 
in so doing, be accused of using on her behalf the privi- 
lege of the biographer, which is to make excuses. I will 
not simply set forth the case for Cleopatra as it were 
in her defence: I will tell the whole story of her life as it 
appears to me, admitting always the possible correctness 
of the estimate of her character held by other historians, 
but, at the same time, offering to public consideration a 
view of her deeds and devices which, if accepted, will 
clear her memory of much of that unpleasant stigma 
so long attached to it, and will place her reputation 
upon a level with those of the many famous persons 
of her time, not one of whom can be called either 
thoroughly bad or wholly good. 

So little is known with any certainty as to Cleo- 
patra’s appearance, that the biographer must feel con- 
siderable reluctance in presenting her to his readers in 
definite guise; yet the duties of an historian do not per- 
mit him to deal with ghosts and shadows, or to invoke 
from the past only the misty semblance of those who 
once were puissant realities. For him the dead must 
rise not as phantoms hovering uncertainly at the mouth 
of their tombs, but as substantial entities observable in 
every detail to the mental eye; and he must endeavour 


6 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to convey to others the impression, however faulty, 
which he himself has received. In the case of Cleo- 
patra, the materials necessary for her resuscitation are 
meagre, and one Is forced to call in the partial assistance 
of the imagination in the effort to rebuild once more 
that body which has been so long dissolved into 
Egyptian dust. 

A few coins upon which the queen’s profile is 
stamped, and a bust of poor workmanship in the Brit- 
ish Museum, are the sole? sources of information as to 
her features. The colour of her eyes and of her hair is 
not known, nor can it be said whether her skin was 
white as alabaster, like that of many of her Macedonian 
fellow-countrywomen, or whether it had that olive tone 
so often observed amongst the Greeks. Even her 
beauty, or rather the degree of her beauty, is not clearly 
defined. It must be remembered that, so far as we 
know, not one drop of Oriental blood flowed in Cleo- 
patra’s veins, and that therefore her type must be 
considered as Macedonian Greek. The slightly brown 
skin of the Egyptian, the heavy dark eyes of the East, 
full, as it were, of sleep, the black hair of silken texture, 
are not features which are to be assigned to her. On 
the contrary, many Macedonian women are fair- 
haired and blue-eyed, and that colouring is frequently 
to be seen amongst the various peoples of the Eastern 
Mediterranean. Nevertheless, it seems most probable, 
all things considered, that she was a brunette; but in 


* The Egyptian reliefs upon the walls of Dendereh temple and elsewhere 
show conventional representations of the queen which are not to be regarded 
1s real portraits. The so-called head of the queen in the Alexandria Museum 
»-obally does not represent her at all, as most archeologists will readily admit. 


THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA 7 


describing her as such it must be borne in mind that 
there is nothing more than a calculated likelihood to 
guide us. 

The features of her face seem to have been strongly 
moulded although the general effect given is that of 
smallness and delicacy. Her nose was aquiline and 
prominent, the nostrils being sensitive and having an 
appearance of good breeding. Her mouth was beauti- 
fully formed, the lips appearing to be finely chiselled. 
Her eyes were large and well placed, her eyebrows 
delicately pencilled. The contour of her cheek and 
chin was charmingly rounded, softening, thus, the lines 
of her clear-cut features. “‘Her beauty,” says Plutarch, 
“was not in itself altogether incomparable, nor such as 
to strike those who saw her’’; and he adds that Octavia, 
afterwards Antony’s wife, was the more beautiful of 
the two women. But he admits, and no other man 
denies, that her personal charm and magnetism were 
very great. ““She was splendid to hear and to see,” 
says Dion Cassius, “and was capable of conquering the 
hearts which had resisted most obstinately the influ- 
ence of love and those which had been frozen by age.” 

It is probable that she was very small in build. In 
order to obtain admittance to her palace upon an oc- 
casion of which we shall presently read, it is related 
that she was rolled up in some bedding and carried over 
the shouders of an attendant, a fact which indicates 
that her weight was not considerable. The British 
Museum bust seems to portray the head of a small 
woman; and, moreover, Plutarch refers to her in terms 
which suggest that her charm lay to some extent in her 


8 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


daintiness. One imagines her thus to have been in ap- 
pearance a small, graceful woman; prettily rounded 
rather than slight; white-skinned; dark-haired and 
dark-eyed; beautiful, and yet by no means a perfect 
type of beauty. 

Her voice is said to have been her most powerful 
weapon, for by the perfection of its modulations it was 
at all times wonderfully persuasive and seductive. 


The Devil hath not, in all his quiver’s choice, 
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice, 


says Byron; and in the case of Cleopatra this poignant 
gift of nature must have served her well throughout 


her life. 


‘Familiarity with her,’ writes Plutarch, “had an 
irresistible charm; and her form, combined with her 
persuasive speech, and with the peculiar character which 
in a manner was diffused about her behaviour, produced a 
certain piquancy. ‘There was a sweetness in the sound of 
her voice when she spoke.” 


“Her charm of speech,’’ Dion Cassius tells us, “was 
such that she won all who listened.” 

Her grace of manner was as irresistible as her voice; 
for, as Plutarch remarks, there seems to have been this 
peculiar, undefined charm in her behaviour. It may 
have been largely due to a kind of elusiveness; but it 
would seem also to have been accentuated by a some- 
what naive and childish manner, a waywardness, an 
audacity, a capriciousness, which enchanted those 
around her. Though often wild and inclined to romp, 


THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA 9 


she possessed considerable dignity, and at times was 
haughty and proud. Pliny speaks of her as being dis- 
dainful and vain, and indeed, so Cicero found her when 
he met her in Rome; but this was an attitude perhaps 
assumed by the queen as a defence against the light 
criticisms of those Roman nobles of the Pompeian fac- 
tion who may have found her position not so honourable 
as she herself believed it to be. There is, indeed, little 
to indicate that her manner was by nature overbearing; 
and one is inclined to picture her as a natural, impul- 
sive woman who passed readily from haughtiness to 
simplicity. Her actions were spontaneous, and one 
may suppose her to have been in her early years as 
often artless as cunning. Her character was always 
youthful, her temperament vivacious, and her manner 
frequently what may be called harum-scarum. She en- 
joyed life, and with candour took from it whatever 
pleasures it held out to her. Her untutored heart leapt 
from mirth to sorrow, from comedy to tragedy, with 
unexpected ease; and with her small hands she tossed 
about her the fabric of her complex circumstances like a 
mantle of light and darkness. 

She was a gifted woman, endowed by nature with 
ready words and a happy wit. 


*“She could easily turn her tongue,” says Plutarch, “like 
a many-stringed instrument, to any language that she 
pleased. She had very seldom need of an interpreter for her 
- communication with foreigners, but she answered most men 
by herself, namely, Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, 
Arabs, Syrians, Medes and Parthians. She is said to have 
learned the language of many other peoples, though the 


10 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


kings, her predecessors, had not even taken the pains to 
learn the Egyptian tongue, and some of them had not so 
much as given up the Macedonian dialect.” 


Statecraft made a strong appeal to her, and as Queen 
of Egypt she served the cause of her dynasty’s inde- 
pendence and aggrandisement with passionate energy. 
Dion Cassius tells us that she was intensely ambitious, 
and most careful that due honour should be paid to her 
throne. Her actions go to confirm this estimate, and 
one may see her consumed at times with a desire for 
world-power. Though clever and bold she was not 
highly skilled, so far as one can see, in the diplomatic 
art; but she seems to have plotted and schemed in the 
manner common to her house, not so much with great 
acuteness or profound depth as with sustained intensity 
and a sort of conviction. Tenacity of purpose is seen 
to have been her prevailing characteristic; and her un- 
wavering struggle for her rights and those of her son 
Cesarion will surely be followed by the interested 
reader through the long story before him with real 
animation. 

It is unanimously supposed that Cleopatra was, as 
Josephus words it, a slave to her lusts. The vicious 
sensuality of the East, the voluptuous degeneracy of an 
Oriental court, are thought to have found their most 
apparent expression in the person of this unfortunate 
queen. Yet what was there, beyond the ignorant and 
prejudiced talk of her Roman enemies, to give a founda- 
tion to such an estimate of her character? She lived 
practically as Cesar’s wife for some years, it being said, 
I believe with absolute truth, that he intended to make 


THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA 11 


her Empress of Rome and his legal consort. After his 
assassination she married Antony, and cohabited with 
him until the last days of her life. Atanage when the 
legal rights of marriage were violated on every side, 
when all Rome and all Alexandria were deeply involved 
in domestic intrigues, Cleopatra, so far as I can see, 
confined her attentions to the two men who in sequence 
each acted towards her in the manner of a legitimate 
husband, each being recognised in Egypt as her divinely 
sanctioned consort. ‘The words of Dion Cassius, which 
tell us that “no wealth could satisfy her, and her pas- 
sions were insatiable,’ do not suggest a more significant 
foundation than that her life was lived on extravagant 
and prodigal lines. There is no doubt that she was 
open to the accusations of her enemies, who described 
her habits as dissipated and intemperate; but there 
seems to be little to indicate that she was in any way a 
Delilah or a Jezebel. For all we know, she may have 
been a very moral woman; certainly she was the fond 
mother of four children, a fact which, even at that day, 
may be said to indicate, to a certain extent, a voluntary 
assumption of the duties of motherhood. After due 
consideration of all the evidence, I am of opinion that 
though her nature may have been somewhat volup- 
tuous, and though her passions were not always under 
control, the best instincts of her sex were by no means 
absent; and indeed, in her maternal aspect, she may be 
described as a really good woman. 

The state of society at the time must be remem- 
bered. In Rome, as well as in Alexandria, love in- 
trigues were continuously in progress. Mommsen, in 


12 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


writing of the moral corruption of the age, speaks of the 
extraordinary degeneracy of the dancing girl of the 
period, whose record “pollutes even the pages of his- 
tory.” 


“But,” he adds, ‘‘their, as it were, licensed trade, was 
materially injured by the free act of the ladies of aristocratic 
circles. Liaisons in the first houses had become so frequent 
that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them 
the subject of special talk, and judicial interference seemed 
now almost ridiculous.” 


Against such a background Cleopatra’s domestic life 
with Cesar, and afterwards with Antony, assumes, by 
contrast, a fair character which is not without its re- 
freshing aspect. We see her intense and lifelong devo- 
tion to her eldest son Cesarion, we picture her busy 
nursery in the royal palace, which at one time resounded 
to the cries of a pair of lusty twins, and the vision of the 
Oriental voluptuary fades from our eyes. Can this 
dainty woman, we ask, who soothes at her breast the 
cries of her fat baby while three sturdy youngsters play 
around her, be the sensuous Queen of the East? Can 
this tender, ingenuous, smiling mother of Cesar’s be- 
loved son be the Siren of Egypt? There is not a particle 
of trustworthy evidence to show that Cleopatra carried 
on a single love affair in her life other than the two re- 
corded so dramatically by history, nor is there any 
evidence to show that in those two affairs she conducted 
herself in a licentious manner. 

Cleopatra was in many ways a refined and cul- 
tured woman. Her linguistic powers indicate a certain 
studiousness; and at the same time she seems to have 





THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA 13 


been a patron of the arts. It is recorded that she made 
Antony present to the city of Alexandria the library 
which once belonged to Pergamum, consisting of 
200,000 volumes; and Cicero seems to record the fact 
that she interested herself in obtaining certain books 
for him from Alexandria. She inherited from her family 
a temperament naturally artistic; and there is no reason 
to suppose that she failed to carry on the high tradi- 
tion of her house in this regard. She was a patron also 
of the sciences, and Photinus, the mathematician, who 
wrote both on arithmetic and geometry, published a 
book actually under her name, called the Canon of 
Cleopatra. 'The famous physician Dioscorides was, it 
would seem, the friend and attendant of the queen; and 
the books which he wrote at her court have been read 
throughout the ages. Sosigenes, the astronomer, was 
also, perhaps, a friend of Cleopatra, and it may have 
been through her good offices that he was introduced to 
Ceesar, with whom he collaborated in the reformation of 
the calendar. The evidence is very inconsiderable in 
regard to the queen’s personal attitude towards the arts 
and sciences, but sufficient may be gleaned to give 
some support to the suggestion that she did not fall be- 
low the standard set by her forefathers. One feels 
that her interest in such matters is assured by the fact 
that she held for so long the devotion of such a man of 
letters as Julius Cesar. There is little doubt that she 
was capable of showing great seriousness of mind when 
occasion demanded, and that her demeanour, so fre- 
quently tumultuous, was often thoughtful and quiet. 
At the same time, however, one must suppose that 


14 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


she viewed her life with a light heart, having, save 
towards the end, a greater familiarity with laughter 
than with tears. She was at all times ready to make 
merry or jest, and a humorous adventure seems to have 
made a special appeal to her. With Antony, as we shall 
see, she was wont to wander around the city at night- 
time, knocking at people’s doors in the darkness and 
running away when they were opened. It is related 
how once when Antony was fishing in the sea, she made 
a diver descend into the water to attach to his line a 
salted fish, which he drew to the surface amidst the 
greatest merriment. One gathers from the early writers 
that her conversation was usually sparkling and gay; 
and it would seem that there was often an infectious 
frivolity in her manner which made ker society most 
exhilarating. 

She was eminently a woman whom men might love, 
for she was active, high-spirited, plucky, and dashing. 
To use a popular phrase, she was always “game” for an 
adventure. Her courageous return to Egypt after she 
had been driven into exile by her brother, is an indica- 
tion of her brave spirit; and the daring manner in which 
she first obtained her introduction to Cesar, causing 
herself to be carried into the palace on a man’s back, 1s 
a convincing instance of that audacious courage which 
makes so strong an appeal on her behalf to the imagina- 
tion. Florus, who was no friend of the queen’s, speaks 
of her as being “‘free from all womanly fear.” | 

We now come to the question as to whether she was 
cruel by nature. It must be admitted that she caused 
the assassination of her sister Arsinoe, and ordered the 


THE CHARACTER OF CLEOPATRA = 15 


execution of others who were, at that time, plotting 
against her. But it must be remembered that political 
murders of this kind were a custom—nay, a habit—of 
the period; and moreover, the fact that the Queen of 
Egypt used her rough soldiers for the purpose does not 
differentiate the act from that of Good Queen Bess, 
who employed a Lord Chief Justice and an axe. The 
early demise of Ptolemy XV, her brother, is attributable 
as much to Cesar as to Cleopatra, if, indeed, he did not 
die a natural death. The execution of King Artavasdes 
of Armenia was a political act of no great significance. 
And the single remaining charge of cruelty which may 
be brought against the queen, namely, that she tested 
the efficacy of various poisons on the persons of con- 
demned criminals, need not be regarded as indicating 
callousness on her part; for it mattered little to the con- 
demned prisoner what manner of sudden death he 
should die, but, on the other hand, the discovery of a 
pleasant solution to the quandary of her own life was a 
point of capital importance to herself. When we recall 
the painful record of callous murders which were per- 
petuated during the reigns of her predecessors, we can- 
not attribute to Cleopatra any extraordinary degree of 
heartlessness, nor can we say that she showed herself to 
be cruel as were other members of her family. She lived 
in a ruthless age; and, on the whole, her behaviour was 
tolerant and good-natured. 

In religious matters she was not, like so many per- 
sons of that period, a disbeliever in the power of the 
gods. She had a strong pagan belief in the close associa- 
tion of divinity and royalty, and she seems to have ac- 


16 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


cepted without question the hereditary assurance of 
her own celestial affiliation. She was wont to dress 
herself on gala occasions in the robes of Isis or Aphro- 
dite, and to act the part of a goddess incarnate upon 
earth, assuming not divine powers but divine rights. 
She regarded herself as being closely in communion 
with the virile gods of Egypt and Greece; and when 
signs and wonders were pointed out to her by her as- 
trologers, or when she noted good or ill omens in the 
occurrences around her, she was particularly prone to 
giving them full recognition as being communications 
from her heavenly kin. Her behaviour at the battle of 
Actium is often said to have been due to her conscious- 
ness of the warnings which she had received by means 
of such portents; and on other occasions in her life her 
actions were ordered by these means. It is related by 
Josephus that she violated the temples of Egypt in 
order to obtain money to carry on the war against 
Rome, and that no place was so holy or so infamous 
that she would not attempt to strip it of its treasures 
when she was pressed for gold. If this be true, it may 
be argued in the queen’s defence that the possessions of 
the gods were considered by her to be, as it were, her 
own property, as the representative of heaven upon 
earth, and in this case they were the more especially at 
her disposal since they were to be converted into money 
for the glory of Egypt. As a matter of fact, it is prob- 
able that in the last emergencies of her reign, the 
Queen’s agents obtained supplies wherever they found 
them, and, if Cleopatra was consulted at all, she was far 
too distracted to give the matter very serious thought. 


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It is not necessary here to inquire further into the 
character of the queen. Her personality, as I see it, will 
become apparent in the following record of her tragic 
life. It is essential to remember that, though her faults 
were many, she was not what is usually called bad. She 
was a brilliant, charming, and beautiful woman; per- 
haps not over-scrupulous, and yet not altogether un- 
principled; ready, no doubt, to make use of her charms, 
but not an immoral character. As the historian pictures 
her figure moving lightly through the mazes of her life, 
now surrounded by her armies in the thick of battle; 
now sailing up the moonlit Nile in her royal barge with 
Cesar beside her; now tenderly playing in the nursery 
with her babies; now presiding brilliantly at the gorge- 
ous feasts in the Alexandrian palace; now racing in dis- 
guise down the side-streets of her capital, choking with 
suppressed laughter; now speeding across the Mediter- 
ranean to her doom; and now, all haggard and forlorn, 
holding the deadly asp to her body—he cannot fail to 
fall himself under the spell of that enchantment by 
which the face of the world was changed. He finds that 
he is dealing not with a daughter of Satan, who, from 
her lair in the East, stretches out her hand to entrap 
Rome’s heroes, but with mighty Cesar’s wife and 
widow, fighting for Ceesar’s child; with Antony’s faith- 
ful consort, striving, as will be shown, to unite Egypt 
and Rome in one vast empire. He sees her not as the 
crowned courtesan of the Orient, but as the excellent 
royal lady, who by her wits and graces held captive the 
two greatest men of her time in the bonds of a union 
which in Egypt was equivalent to a legal marriage. He 


18 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


sees before him once more the small, graceful figure, 
whose beauty compels, whose voice entices, and in 
whose face (it may be by the kindly obliterations of 
time), there is no apparent evil; and the unprejudiced 
historian must find himself hard put to it to say whether 
his sympathies are ranged on the side of Cleopatra, or 
on that of her Roman rival in the great struggle for 
the mastery of the whole earth which is recorded in the 
following pages. 


CHAPTER II 
THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 


No study of the life of Cleopatra can be of true value 
unless the position of the city of Alexandria, her capital, 
in relationship to Egypt on the one hand and to Greece 
and Rome on the other, is fully understood and appre- 
ciated. The reader must remember, and bear continu- 
ally in mind, that Alexandria was at that time, and still 
is, more closely connected in many ways with the Medi- 
terranean kingdoms than with Egypt proper. It bore, 
geographically, no closer relation to the Nile valley 
than Carthage bore to the interior of North Africa. 
Indeed, to some extent it is legitimate in considering 
Alexandria to allow the thoughts to find a parallel m 
the relationship of Philadelphia to the interior of 
America in the seventeenth century or of Bombay to 
India in the eighteenth century, for in these cases we 
see a foreign settlement, representative of a progressive 
civilisation, largely dependent on transmarine shipping 
for its prosperity, set down on the coast of a country 
whose habits are obsolete. It is almost as incorrect to 
class the Alexandrian Queen Cleopatra as a native 
Egyptian, as it would be to imagine William Penn as a 


Red Indian or Warren Hastings as a Hindoo. Cleo- 
19 


20 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


patra in Alexandria was cut off from Egypt. There is 
no evidence that she ever even saw the Sphinx, and it 
would seem that the single journey up the Nile of which 
the history of her reign gives us any record was under- 
taken by her solely at the desire of Cesar. Bearing 
this fact in mind, I do not think it is desirable for me to 
refer at any length to the affairs, or to the manners and 
customs, of Egypt proper in this volume; and it will 
be observed that, in order to avoid giving to events 
here recorded an Egyptian character, which in reality 
they did not possess in any very noticeable degree, I 
have refrained from introducing any account of the 
people who lived in the great country behind Alexandria 
over which Cleopatra reigned. 

The topographical position of Alexandria, selected 
by its illustrious founder, seems to have been chosen 
on account of its detachment from Egypt proper. The 
city was erected upon a strip of land having the Medi- 
terranean on the one side and the Mareotic lake on the 
other. It was thus cut off from the hinterland far more 
effectively even than was Carthage by its semicircle of 
hills. Alexander had intended to make the city a purely 
Greek settlement, the port at which the Greeks should 
land their goods for distribution throughout Egypt, 
and whence the produce of the abundant Nile should 
be shipped to the north and west. He selected a re- 
mote corner of the Delta for his site, with the plain 
intention of holding his city at once free of, and in 
dominion over, Egypt; and so precisely was the location 
suited to his purpose that until this day Alexandria 
is in little more than name a city of the Egyptians. 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 21 


Even at the present time, when an excellent system of 
express railway trains connects Alexandria with Cairo 
and upper Egypt, there are many well-to-do inhabi- 
tants who have not seen more than ten miles of Egyp- 
tian landscape; and the vast majority have never been 
within sight of the Pyramids. The wealthy foreigners 
settled in Alexandria often know nothing whatsoever 
about Egypt, and Cairo itself is beyond their ken. The 
Greeks, Levantines, and Jews, who now, as in ancient 
days, form a very large part of the population of Alex- 
andria, would shed bitter tears of gloomy foreboding 
were they called upon to penetrate into the Egypt 
which the tourists and the officials know and love. The 
middle-class Egyptians of Alexandria are rarely tempted 
to enter Egypt proper, and even those who have in- 
herited a few acres of land in the interior are often 
unwilling to visit their property. 

Egypt as we know it 1s a ferra incognita to the Alex- 
andrian. The towering cliffs of the desert, the wide 
Nile, the rainless skies, the amazing brilliance of the 
stars, the ruins of ancient temples, the great pyramids, 
the decorated tombs, the clustered mud-huts of the vil- 
ages in the shade of the dom-palms and the sycamores, 
the creaking sakkiehs or water-wheels, the gracefully 
worked shadufs or water-hoists—all these are unknown 
to the inhabitants of Alexandria. They have never 
seen the hot deserts and the white camel-tracks over 
the hills, they have not looked upon the Nile tumbling 
over the granite rocks of the cataracts, nor have they 
watched the broad expanse of the mundation. That 
peculiar, undefined aspect and feeling which 1s asso- 


22 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ciated with the thought of Egypt in the minds of visitors 
and residents does not tincture the impression of the 
Alexandrians. They have not felt the subtle influence 
of the land of the Pharaohs; they are sons of the Medi- 
terranean, not children of the Nile. 

The climate of Alexandria is very different from that 
of the interior of the Delta, and bears no similarity to 
that of Upper Egypt. At Thebes the winter days are 
warm and brilliantly sunny, the nights often extremely 
cold. The summer climate is intensely hot, and there 
are times when the resident might there believe himself 
an inhabitant of the infernal regions. The temperature 
in and around Cairo is more moderate, and the summer 
is tolerable, though by no means pleasant. In Alex- 
andria, however, the summer is cool and temperate. 
There is perhaps no climate in the entire world so per- 
fect as that of Alexandria in the early summer. The 
days are cloudless, breezy and brilliant; the nights cool 
and even cold. In August and September it is some- 
what damp, and therefore unpleasant; but it is never 
very hot, and the conditions of life are almost precisely 
those of southern Europe. 

The winter days on the sea-coast are often cold and 
rainy, the climate being not unlike that of Italy at the 
same time of year. People must needs wear thick cloth- 
ing, and must study the barometer before taking their 
promenades. While Thebes, and even the Pyramids, 
bask in more or less continual sunshine, the city of 
Alexandria is lashed by intermittent rainstorms, and 
the salt sea-wind buffets the pedestrian as it screams 
down the paved streets. The peculiar texture of the 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 23 


true Egyptian atmosphere is not felt in Alexandria; the 
air is that of Marseilles, of Naples, or of the Pireeus. 

In summer time the sweating official of the south 
makes his way seaward in the spirit of one who leaves 
the tropics for northern shores. He enters the north- 
bound express on some stifling evening in June, the 
amazing heat still radiating from the frowning cliffs of 
the desert, and striking up into his eyes from the. 
parched earth around the station. He lies tossing and 
panting in his berth while the electric fans beat down 
the hot air upon him, until the more temperate mid- 
night permits him to fall into a restless sleep. In the 
morning he arrives at Cairo, where the moisture runs 
more freely from his face by reason of the greater 
humidity, though now the startling intensity of the 
heat is not felt. Anon he travels through the Delta 
towards the north, still mopping his brow as the morn- 
ing sun bursts into the carriage. But suddenly, a few 
miles from the coast, a change is felt. For the first time, 
perhaps for many weeks, he feels cool; he wishes his 
clothes were not so thin. He packs up his helmet and 
dons a straw hat. Arriving at Alexandria, he is amused 
to find that he actually feels chilly. He no longer 
dreads to move abroad in the sun at high noon, but, 
waving aside the importunate carriage-drivers, he walks 
briskly to his hotel. He does not sit in a darkened room 
with windows tightly shut against the heat, but pulls 
the chair out on to the verandah to take the air; and at 
night he does not lie stark naked on his bed in the 
garden, cursing the imagined heat of the stars and the 
moon, and praying for the mercy of sleep; but, like a 


24 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


white man in his own land, he tucks himself up under a 
blanket in the cool bedroom, and awakes lively and 
refreshed. 

A European may live the year round at Alexandria 
and may express a preference for the summer. The 
wives and children of English officials not infrequently 
remain there throughout the warmer months, not from 
necessity but from choice; and there are many persons 
of northern blood who are happy to call it their home. 
_ In Cairo such families rarely remain during the summer, 
unless under compulsion, while in Upper Egypt there is 
hardly a white woman in the land between May and 
October. Egypt is considered by them to be solely a 
winter residence, and the official is of opinion that he 
pays toll to fortune for the pleasures of the winter sea- 
son by the perils and torments of the summer months. 
Even the middle and upper class Egyptians themselves, 
recruited, as they generally are in official circles, from 
Cairo, suffer terribly from the heat in the south—often 
more so, indeed, than the English; and I myself, on 
more than one occasion, have had to abandon a sum- 
mer day’s ride owing to the prostration of one of the 
native staff. 

The Egyptian of Alexandria and the north looks 
with scorn upon the inhabitants of the upper country. 
The southerner, on the other hand, has no epithet of 
contempt more biting than that of “ Alexandrian.” To 
the hardy peasant of the Thebaid the term means all 
that “scallawag” denotes to us. The northern Egyp- 
tian, unmindful of the relationship of a kettle to a 
saucepan, calls the southerner “black” in disdainful 












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THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 25 


tones. A certain Alexandrian Egyptian of undiluted 
native stock, who was an official in a southern district, 
told me that he found life very dull in his provincial 
capital, surrounded as he was by “‘all these confounded 
niggers.” And if the Egyptians of Alexandria are thus 
estranged from those who constitute the backbone of 
the Egyptian nation, it will be understood how great is 
the gulf between the Greeks or other foreign residents 
in that city and the bulk of the people of the Nile. 

I am quite sure that Cleopatra spoke of the Egyp- 
tians of the interior as “confounded niggers.” Her in- 
terests and sympathies, like those of her city, were 
directed across the Mediterranean. She held no more 
intimate relationship to Egypt than does the London 
millionaire to the African gold-mines which he owns. 
Alexandria at the present day still preserves the Euro- 
pean character with which it was endowed by Alexander 
and the Ptolemies; or perhaps it were more correct to 
say that it has once more assumed that character. 
There are large quarters of the city, of course, which 
are native in style and appearance, but, viewed as a 
whole, it suggests to the eye rather an Italian than an 
Egyptian seaport. It has extremely little n common 
with the Egyptian metropolis and other cities of the 
Nile; and we are aware that there was no greater simi- 
larity in ancient times. The very flowers and trees 
are different. In Upper Egypt the gardens have a 
somewhat. artificial beauty, for the grace of the land 
is more dependent upon the composition of cliffs, river 
and fields. There are few wild flowers, and little 
natural grass. In the gardens the flowers are evident 


26 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


importations, while the lawns have to be sown every 
autumn, and do not survive the summer. But in 
Alexandria there is always a blaze of flowers, and one 
notes with surprise the English hollyhocks, foxgloves 
and stocks growing side by side with the plants of 
southern Europe. In the fields of Mariout, over against 
Alexandria, the wild flowers in spring are those of the 
hills of Greece. Touched by the cool breeze from the 
sea, one walks over ground scarlet and gold with pop- 
pies and daisies; there bloom asphodel and iris; and the 
ranunculus grows to the size of a tulip. There is a 
daintiness in these fields and gardens wholly un-Egyp- 
tian, completely different from the more permanent 
grace of the south. One feels that Pharaoh walked not 
in fields of asphodel, that Amon had no dominion here 
amidst the poppies by the sea. One is transplanted in 
imagination to Greece and to Italy, and the knowledge 
becomes the more apparent that Cleopatra and her 
city were an integral part of European life, only slightly 
touched by the very finger-tips of the Orient. 

The coast of Egypt rises so little above the level of 
the Mediterranean that the land cannot be seen by those 
approaching it from across the sea, until but a few miles 
separate them from the surf which breaks upon the 
sand and rocks of that barren shore. The mountains of 
other East-Mediterranean countries—Greece, Italy, 
Sicily, Crete, Cypr s, and Syria—rising out of the blue 
waters, served as landmarks for the mariners of ancient 
days, and were discernible upon the horizon for many 
long hours before wind or oars carried the vessels in 
under their lee. But the Egyptian coast offered no 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 27 


such assistance to the captains of sea-going galleys, and 
they were often obliged to approach closely to the 
treacherous shore before their exact whereabouts be- 
came apparent to them. The city of Alexandria was 
largely hidden from view by the long, low island of 
Pharos, which lay in front of it and which was little dis- 
similar in appearance from the mainland.t Two prom- 
ontories of land projected from the coast opposite either 
end of the island; and, these being lengthened by the 
building of breakwaters, the straits between Pharos 
Island and the mainland were converted into an excel- 
lent harbour, both it and the main part of the city being 
screened from the open sea. There was one tremendous 
landmark, however, which served to direct all vessels 
to their destination, namely, the far-famed Pharos 
lighthouse, standing upon the east end of the island, 
and overshadowing the main entrance to the port.? It 
had been built during the reign of Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus by Sostratus of Cnidus, two hundred years and 
more before the days of Cleopatra, and it ranked as one 
of the wonders of the world. It was constructed of 
white marble, and rose to a height of 400 ells, or 500 
feet. By day it stood like a pillar of alabaster, gleam- 
ing against the leaden haze of the sky; and from night- 
fall until dawn there shone from its summit a powerful 
beacon-light which could be seen, it is said,* for 300 
stadia, 2.e., 34 miles, across the waters. 

The harbour was divided into two almost equal parts 

t This island has now become part of the mainland. 


2 For a restoration of the lighthouse, see the work of H. Thiersch. 


3 Josephus. 


28 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


by a great embankment, known as the Heptastadium, 
which joined the city to the island. This was cut at 
either end by a passage or waterway leading from one 
harbour to the other, but these two passages were 
bridged over, and thus a clear causeway was formed, 
seven stadia, or 1400 yards, in length. To the west of 
this embankment lay the Harbour of Eunostos, or the 
Happy Return, which was entered from behind the 
western extremity of Pharos Island while to the east of 
the embankment lay the Great Harbour, the entrance to 
which passed between the enormous lighthouse and the 
Diabathra, or breakwater, built out from the promon- 
tory known as Lochias. This entrance was dangerous, 
owing to the narrowness of the fairway and to the pres- 
ence of rocks, against which the rolling waves of the 
Mediterranean, driven by the prevalent winds of the 
north, beat with almost continuous violence. 

A vessel entering the port of Alexandria from this 
side was steered towards the great lighthouse, around 
the foot of which the waves leapt and broke in showers 
of white foam. Skirting the dark rocks at the base of 
this marble wonder, the vessel slipped through the pas- 
sage into the still entrance of the harbour, leaving the 
breakwater on the left hand. Here, on a windless day, 
one might look down to the sand and the rocks at the 
bottom of the sea, so clear and transparent was the 
water and so able to be penetrated by the strong light 
of the sun. Seaweed of unaccustomed hues covered the 
sunken rocks over which the vessels floated; and ane- 
mones, like great flowers, could be seen swaying in the 
gentle motion of the under-currents. Passing on into 


aE eg a ee en hn ee ee 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 29 


the deeper water of the harbour, in which the sleek dol- 
phins arose and dived in rhythmic succession, the travel- 
ler saw before him such an array of palaces and public 
buildings as could be found nowhere else in the world. 
There stood, on his left hand, the Royal Palace, which 
was spread over the Lochias Promontory and extended 
round towards the west. Here, beside a little island 
known as Antirrhodos, itself the site of a royal pa- 
vilion, lay the Royal Harbour, where flights of broad 
steps descended into the azure water, which at this 
point was so deep that the largest galleys might moor 
against the quays. Along the edge of the mainland, 
overlooking the great harbour, stood a series of magnifi- 
cent buildings which must have deeply impressed all 
those who were approaching the city across the water. 
Here stood the imposing museum, which was actually 
a part of another palace, and which formed a kind of 
institute for the study of the sciences, presided over by 
a priest appointed by the sovereign. The buildings 
seem to have consisted of a large hall wherein the pro- 
fessors took their meals; a series of arcades in which 
these men of learning walked and talked; a hall, or as- 
sembly rooms, in which their lectures were held; and, at 
the north end, close to the sea, the famous library, at 
this time containing more than half a million scrolls. 
On rising ground between the museum and the Lochias 
Promontory stood the theatre, wherein those who oc- 
cupied the higher seats might look beyond the stage to 
the island of Antirrhodos, behind which the incoming 
galleys rode upon the blue waters in the shadow of 
Pharos. At the back of the theatre, on still higher 


39 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ground, the Paneum, or Temple of Pan, had been 
erected. This is described by Strabo as “an artificial 
mound of the shape of a fir-cone, resembling a pile of 
rock, to the top of which there is an ascent by a spiral 
path, from whose summit may be seen the whole city 
lying all around and beneath it.” To the west of this 
mound stood the gymnasium, a superb building, the 
porticos of which alone exceeded a stadium, or 200 
yards, in length. The courts of justice, surrounded by 
groves and gardens, adjoined the gymnasium. Close 
to the harbour, to the west of the theatre, was the 
forum, and in front of it, on the quay, stood a temple of 
Neptune. To the west of this, near the museum, there 
was an enclosure called Sema, in which stood the tombs 
of the Ptolemaic Kings of Egypt, built around the 
famous Mausoleum wherein the bones of Alexander the 
Great rested in a sarcophagus of alabaster. 4 

These buildings, all able to be seen from the har- 
bour, formed the quarter of the city known as the Regia, 
Brucheion, or Royal Area. Here the white stone struc- 
tures reflected in the mirror of the harbour, the 
statues and monuments, the trees and brilliant flower- 
gardens, the flights of marble steps passing down to the 
sea, the broad streets and public places, must have 
formed a scene of magnificence not surpassed at that 
time in the whole world. Nor would the traveller, upon 
stepping ashore from his vessel, be disappointed in his 
expectations as he roamed the streets of the town. 
Passing through the Forum he would come out upon 


4'The first Ptolemy brought the body of Alexander to Alexandria, and de- 
posited it, so it is said, in a golden sarcophagus; but this was believed to have 
been stolen, and the alabaster one substituted. 


——— 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 81 


the great thoroughfare, more than three miles long, 
which cut right through the length of the city in a 
straight line, from the Gate of the Necropolis, at the 
western end, behind the Harbour of the Happy Re- 
turn, to the Gate of Canopus, at the eastern extremity, 
some distance behind the Lochias Promontory. This 
magnificent boulevard, known as the Street of Canopus, 
or the Meson Pedion, was flanked on either side by 
colonnades, and was 100 feet in breadth.* On its north 
side would be seen the museum, the Sema, the palaces, 
and the gardens; on the south side the gymnasium with 
its long porticos, the Paneum towering up against the 
sky, and numerous temples and public places. Were 
the traveller to walk eastwards along this street he 
would pass through the Jewish quarter, adorned by 
many synagogues and national buildings, through the 
Gate of Canopus, built in the city walls, and so out on to 
open ground, where stood the Hippodromus or Race- 
course, and several public buildings. Here the sun- 
baked soil was sandy, the rocks glaring white, and but 
little turf was to be seen. A few palms, bent southward 
by the sea wind, and here and there a cluster of acacias, 
gave shade to pedestrians; while between the road and 
the sea the Grove of Nemesis offered a. pleasant fore- 
ground to the sandy beach and the blue expanse of the 
Mediterranean beyond. Near by stood the little settle- 
ment of Eleusis, which was given over to festivities and 
merry-making. Here there were several restaurants 
and houses of entertainment which are said to have 
commanded beautiful views; but so noisy was the fun 


5 Surely not 200 feet, as is sometimes said. 


32 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


supplied, and so dissolute the manners of those who 
frequented the place, that better-class Alexandrians 
were inclined to avoid it. At a distance of some three 
miles from Alexandria stood the suburb of Nicopolis, 
where numerous villas, themselves “not less than a 
city,” says Strabo,® had been erected along the sea- 
front, and the sands in summer time were crowded with 
bathers. Farther eastward the continuation of the 
Street of Canopus passed on to the town of that name 
and Egypt proper. 

Returning within the city walls and walking west- 
wards along the Street of Canopus, the visitor would 
pass once more through the Regia and thence through 
the Egyptian quarter known as Rhakotis, to the west- 
ern boundary. This quarter, being immediately behind 
the commercial harbour, was partly occupied by ware- 
houses and ships’ offices, and was always a very busy 
district of the town. Here there was an inner harbour 
called Cibotos, or the Ark, where there were extensive 
docks; and from this a canal passed, under the Street of 
Canopus, to the lake at the back of the city. Ona 
rocky hill behind the Rhakotis quarter stood the mag- 
nificent Serapeum, or Temple of Serapis, which was ap- 
proached by a broad street running at right angles to 
the Street of Canopus, which it bisected at a point not 
far west of the museum, being a continuation of the 
Heptastadium. The temple is said to have been sur- 
passed in grandeur by no other building in the world 
except the Capitol at Rome; and, standing as it did ata 
considerable elevation, it must have towered above the 


6 Some years later, after it had been popularised by Augustus. 










Ra ee ee Ce ey ES pe 
Sed ae AM Uy reg , nie ath Ue Re dy Ge ney? SO) AGN is) 
goog . . d linda Pee RTF RT eg ARTA AIR Aelita! ee co |x! me hte he te oe 


grt H 


Be ter acer tala li serail bia ities TEE Nae | etalon abdieaciediag) Xa) 
t : 





¥ 
< 
Sa) Dey, 


s aS: See Sent ae eee eS 
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Rant ABET re i ner he RO gE te = 






hs 








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pai ERE I No thretde ATT Rb ea 5 neat 








ya ell MN es EE? EE 
“oD x , oa oe we mae sy . 














West JO Longitude O 10 20 Longitude 30 t 


THE KNOWN WORLD 


IN THE TIME OF 


CLEOPATRA 








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ee ee hee ale cama me ler ne eatin 


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XH STATA 


ees 
a 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 33 


hubbub and the denser atmosphere of the streets and 
houses at its foot, as though to receive the purification of 
the untainted wind of the sea. Behind the temple, on the 
open rocky ground outside the city walls, stood the Sta- 
dium; and away towards the west the Necropolis was 
spread out, with its numerous gardens and mausoleums. 
Still farther westward there were numerous villas 
and gardens; and it may be that the wonderful flowers 
which at the present day grow wild upon this ground 
are actually the descendants of those introduced and 
cultivated by the Greeks of the days of Cleopatra. 
Along the entire length of the back walls of the city 
lay the Lake of Mareotis, which cut off Alexandria from 
the Egyptian Delta, and across this stretch of water 
vast numbers of vessels brought the produce of Egypt 
to the capital. The lake harbour and docks were built 
around an inlet which penetrated some considerable dis- 
tance into the heart of the city not far to the east of the 
Paneum, and from them a great colonnaded thorough- 
fare, as wide as the Street of Canopus, which it crossed 
at right angles, passed through the city to the Great 
Harbour, being terminated at the south end by the 
Gate of the Sun, and at the north end by the Gate of the 
Moon. These lake docks are said to have been richer 
and more important even than the maritime docks on 
the opposite side of the town; for over the lake the 
traffic of vessels coming by river and canal from all 
parts of Egypt was always greater than the shipping 
across the Mediterranean. The shores of this land 
sea were exuberantly fertile. A certain amount of papy- 
Tus grew at the edges of the lake, considerable stretches 


34 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of water being covered by the densely growing reeds. 
The Alexandrians were wont to use the plantations for 
their picnics, penetrating in small boats into the thick- 
est part of the reeds, where they were overshadowed by 
the leaves, which, also, they used as dishes and drink- 
ing-vessels. | Extensive vineyards and fruit gardens 
flourished at the edge of the water; and there are said 
to have been eight islands which rose from the placid 
surface of the lake and were covered by luxuriant 
gardens. 

Strabo tells us that Alexandria contained extremely 
beautiful public parks and grounds, and abounded with 
magnificent buildings of all kinds. The whole city was 
intersected by roads wide enough for the passage of 
chariots; and, as has been said, the three main streets, 
those leading to the Gate of Canopus, to the Serapeum, 
and to the Lake Harbour, were particularly noteworthy 
both for their breadth and length. Indeed, in the Fit- 
teenth Idyll of Theocritus, one of the characters com- 
plains most bitterly of the excessive length of the 
Alexandrian streets. The kings of the Ptolemaic dy- 
nasty, for nearly three centuries, had expended vast 
sums in the beautification of their capital, and at the 
period with which we are now dealing it had become 
the rival of Rome in magnificence and luxury. The 
novelist, Achilles Tatius, writing some centuries later, 
when many of the Ptolemaic edifices had been replaced 
by Roman constructions perhaps of less merit, cried, as 
he beheld the city, ‘“‘We are vanquished, mine eyes’; 
and there is every reason to suppose that his'words were 
no unlicensed exaggeration. In the brilliant sunshine 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 35 


of the majority of Egyptian days, the stately palaces, 
temples, and public buildings which reflected themselves 
in the waters of the harbour, or cast their shadows across 
the magnificent Street of Canopus, must have dazzled 
the eyes of the spectator and brought wonder into his 
heart. 

The inhabitants of the city were not altogether 
worthy of their splendid home. In modern times the 
people of Alexandria exhibit much the same conglomera- 
tion of nationalities as they did in ancient days; but 
the distinguishing line between Egyptians and Euro- 
peans is now more sharply defined than it was in the 
reign of Cleopatra, owing to the fact that the former 
are mostly Mohammedans and the latter Christians, 
no marriage being permitted between them. In 
Ptolemaic times only the Jews of Alexandria stood out- 
side the circle of international marriages which was 
gradually forming the people of the city into a single 
type; for they alone practised that conventional ex- 
clusiveness which indicated a strong religious convic- 
tion. The Greek element, always predominant in the 
city, was mainly Macedonian; but in the period we are 
now studying so many inter-marriages with Egyptians 
had taken place that in the case of a large number of 
families the stock was much mixed. There must have 
been, of course, a certain number of aristocratic 
houses, descended from the Macedonian soldiers and 
officials who had come to Egypt with Alexander the 
Great and the first Ptolemy, whose blood had been 
kept pure; and we hear of such persons boasting of their 
nationality, though the ruin of their fatherland and its 


36 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


subservience to Rome had left them little of which to be 
proud. In like manner there must have been many 
pure Egyptian families, no less proud of their national- 
ity than were the Macedonians. The majority of edu- 
cated people could now speak both the Greek and 
Egyptian tongues, and all official decrees and proclama- 
tions were published in both languages. Many Greeks 
assumed Egyptian names in addition to their own; and 
it is probable that there were at this date Egyptians 
who, in like manner, adopted Greek names. 

Beside Greeks and Egyptians, there were numerous 
Italians, Cretans, Phoenicians, Cilicians, Cypriots, 
Persians, Syrians, Armenians, Arabs, and persons of 
other nationalities, who had, to some extent, inter- 
married with Alexandrian families, thus producing a 
stock which must have been much like that to be found 
in the city at the present day and now termed Levan- 
tine. Some of these had come to Alexandria origi- 
nally as respectable merchants and traders; others 
were sailors, and, indeed, pirates; yet others were es- 
caped slaves, outlaws, criminals, and debtors who were 
allowed to enter Alexandria on condition that they 
served in the army; while not a few were soldiers of 
fortune who had been enrolled in the forces of Egypt. 
There was a standing army of these mercenaries in 
Alexandria, and Polybius, writing of the days of Cleo- 
patra’s great-grandfather, Ptolemy IX, speaks of them 
as being oppressive and dissolute, desiring to rule rather 
than to obey. A further introduction of foreign blood 
was due to the presence of the Gabinian Army of Oc- 
cupation, the members of which had settled down in 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 37 


Alexandria and had married Alexandrian women. 
These soldiers were largely drawn from Germany and 
Gaul; and though there had not yet been time for 
them to do more than add a horde of half-caste children 
to the medley, their own presence in the city con- 
tributed strikingly to the cosmopolitan character of the 
streets. This barbaric force, with its Roman officers, 
must have been in constant rivalry with the so-called 
Macedonian Household Troops which guarded the 
palace; but when Cleopatra came to the throne the 
latter force had already been freely recruited from all 
the riff-raff of the world, and was in no way a match for 
the northerners. 

The aristocracy of Alexandria probably consisted 
of the cosmopolitan officers of the mercenaries and 
Household Troops, the Roman officers of the Gabinian 
army, the Macedonian courtiers, the Greek and Egyp- 
tian officials, and numerous families of wealthy Eu- 
ropeans, Syrians, Jews and Egyptians. The professors 
and scholars of the Museum constituted a class of their 
own, much patronised by the court, but probably not 
often accepted by the aristocracy of the city for any 
other reason than that of their learning. The mob was 
mainly composed of Greeks of mixed breed, together 
‘with a large number of Egyptians of somewhat impure 
stock; and a more noisy, turbulent, and excitable crowd 
could not be found in all the world, not even in riotous 
Rome. The Greeks and Jews were constantly annoy- 
ing one another, but the Greeks and Egyptians seem to 
have fraternised to a very considerable extent, for there 
was not so wide a gulf between them as might be im- 


38 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


agined. The Egyptians of Alexandria, and, indeed, of 
all the Delta, were often no darker-skinned than the 
Greeks. Both peoples were noisy, and excitable, vain 
and ostentatious, smart and clever. They did not 
quarrel upon religious matters, for the Egyptian gods 
were easily able to be identified with those of Greece, 
and the chief deity of Alexandria, Serapis, was here 
worshipped by both nations in common. In the do- 
main of art they had no cause for dissensions, for the in- 
dividual art of Egypt was practically dead, and that of 
Greece had been accepted by cultivated Egyptians as 
the correct expression of the refinement in which they 
desired to live. Both peoples were industrious, and 
eager in the pursuit of wealth, and both were able to 
set their labours aside with ease, and to turn their 
whole attention to the amusements which the luxurious 
city provided. Polybius speaks of the Egyptians as 
being smart and civilised; and of the Alexandrian 
Greeks he writes that they were a poor lot, though he 
seems to have preferred them to the Egyptians. 

The people of Alexandria were passionately fond of 
the theatre. In the words of Dion Chrysostom, who, 
however, speaks of the citizens of a century later than 
Cleopatra, 


“the whole town lived for excitement, and when the mani- 
festation of Apis (the sacred bull) took place, all Alexandria 
went fairly mad with musical entertainments and horse- 
races. When doing their ordinary work they were appar- 
ently sane, but the instant they entered the theatre or the 
racecourse they appeared as if possessed by some intoxicating 
drug, so that they no longer knew nor cared what they said 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 39 


or did. And this was the case even with women and child- 
ren, so that when the show was over, and the first madness 
past, all the streets and byways were seething with excite- 
ment for days, like the swell after a storm.” 


The Emperor Hadrian says of them: 


“I have found them wholly light, wavering, and flying 
after every breath of a report... They are seditious, 
vain, and. spiteful, though as a body wealthy and 
prosperous.” 


The impudent wit of the young Greco-Egyptian dandy 
was proverbial, and must always have constituted a 
cause of offence to those whose public positions laid 
them open to attack. No sooner did a statesman as- 
sume office, or a king come to the throne, than he was 
given some scurrilous nickname by the wags of the city, 
which stuck to him throughout the remainder of his life. 
Thus, to quote a few examples, Ptolemy IX was called 
“Bloated,” Ptolemy X “Vetch,” Ptolemy XIII 
“Piper’’; Seleucus they named “Pickled-fish Pedlar,”’ 
and in later times Vespasian was named “Scullion.” 
All forms of ridicule appealed to them, and many are 
the tales told in this regard. Thus, when King Agrippa 
passed through the city on his way to his insecure 
throne, these young Alexandrians dressed up an un- 
fortunate madman whom they had found in the streets, 
put a paper crown upon his head and a reed in his hand, 
and led him through the town, hailing him as King of 
the Jews; and this in spite of the fact that Agrippa was 
the friend of Caligula, their Emperor. Against Ves- 
pasian they told with delight the story of how he had 


40 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA | 


bothered one of his friends for the payment of a trifling 
loan of six obols, and somebody made up a song in which 
the fact was recorded. They ridiculed Caracalla in the’ 
same manner, laughing at him for dressing himself like 
Alexander the Great, although his stature was below 
the average; but in this case they had not reckoned 
with their man, whose revenge upon them was an act 
no less frightful than the total extermination of all the 
well-to-do young men of the city, they being collected 
together under a false pretence and butchered in cold 
blood. These Alexandrians were famous for the witty 
and scathing verses which they composed upon topical 
subjects; and a later historian speaks of this proficiency 


¢ 


of theirs “in making songs and epigrams against their 


3 


rulers.” Such ditties were carried from Egypt to Rome, 
and were sung in the Italian capital, just as nowadays 
the latest American air is hummed and whistled in the 
streets of London. Indeed, in Rome the wit of Alex- 
andria was very generally appreciated; and, a few years 
later, one hears of Alexandrian comedians causing 
Roman audiences to rock with laughter. 

The Emperor Hadrian, as we have seen, speaks of 
the Alexandrians as being spiteful; and no doubt, a 
great deal of their vaunted wit had that character. The 
young Greco-Egyptian was inordinately vain and 
self-satisfied; and no critic so soon adopts a spiteful tone 
as he who has thought himself above criticism. 'The 
conceit of these smart young men was very noticeable, 
and is frequently referred to by early writers. They ap- 
pear to have been much devoted to the study of their 
personal appearance; and if one may judge by the habits 





Alexandria Museum 


SERAPIS 
THE CHIEF GOD OF ALEXANDRIA 





THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 41 


of the upper-class Egyptians and Levantines of present- 
day Alexandria, many of them must have been intoler- 
able fops. The luxury of their houses was probably far 
greater than that in Roman life at this date, and they 
had studied the culinary arts in an objectionably 
thorough manner. Dion Chrysostom says the Alex- 
andrians of his day thought of little else but food and 
horse-racing. Both Greeks and Egyptians in Alex- 
andria had the reputation of being fickle and easily in- 
fluenced by the moment’s emotion. “I should be 
wasting many words in vain,” says the author of De 
Bello Alexandrino, “if I were to defend the Alexandrians 
from the charges of deceit and levity of mind. . 

There can be no doubt that the race is most prone to 
They had few traditions, no feelings of 


3 


treachery.’ 
patriotism, and not much political interest. They did 
not make any study of themselves, nor write histories 
of their city; they lived for the moment, and if the Gov- 
ernment of the hour were distasteful to them they re- 
volted against it with startling rapidity. The city was 
constantly being disturbed by street rioting, and there 
was no great regard for human life. 

The population of Alexandria is said to have been 
about 300,000 during the later years of the Ptolemaic 
dynasty, which was not much less than that of Rome 
before the Civil War, and twice the Roman number 
after that sanguinary struggle.? In spite of its reputa- 
tion for frivolity it was very largely a business city, and 
a goodly portion of its citizens were animated by a lively 
commercial spirit which quite outclassed that of the 


7Plutarch: Cesar. 


42 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Italian capital in enterprise and bustle. This, of course, 
was a Greek and not an Egyptian characteristic, for 
the latter are notoriously unenterprising and conserva- 
tive in their methods, while the Greeks, to this day, 
are admirable merchants and business imen. Alex- 
andria was the most important corn market of the 
world, and for this reason was always envied by Rome. 
Incidentally I may remark that proportionally far more 
corn was consumed in Cleopatra’s time than in our own; 
and Ceesar once speaks of the endurance of his soldiers 
in submitting to eat meat owing to the scarcity of 
corn.’ The city was also engaged in many other forms 
of commerce, and in the reign of Cleopatra it was recog- 
nised as the greatest trading centre in the world. Here 
East and West met in the busy market places; and at the 
time with which we are dealing the eyes of all men were 
beginning to be turned to this city as being the terminus 
of the new trade-route to India, along which such rich 
merchandise was already being conveyed. 

It was at the same time the chief seat of Greek 
learning, and regarded itself also as the leading au- 
thority on matters of art—a point which must have been 
open to dispute. The great figure of Nilus, of which an 
illustration is given in this volume, is generally con- 
sidered to be an example of Alexandrian art. The fa- 
mous ‘“‘ Alexandrian School,”’ celebrated for its scientific 
work and its poetry, had existed for more than two 
hundred years, and was now in its decline, though it 
still attempted to continue the old Hellenic culture. ® 


§ Bell. Civ. III. 47. 
9Susemihl. Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzett. 


THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA 43 


The school of philosophy, which succeeded it in 
celebrity, was just beginning to come into prominence. 
Thus the eyes of all merchants, all scientists, all men of 
letters, all scholars, and all statesmen, were turned in 
these days to Alexandria; and the Ptolemaic court, in 
spite of the degeneracy of its sovereigns, was held 
in the highest esteem. 


CHAPTER III 
THE BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 


CLEOPATRA was the last of the regnant Ptolemaic 
sovereigns of Egypt, and was the seventh Egyptian 
queen of her name," in her person all the rights and 
privileges of that extraordinary line of Pharaohs being 
vested. The Ptolemaic Dynasty was founded in the 
first years of the third century before Christ by 
Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, one of the Macedonian 
generals of Alexander the Great, who, on his master’s 
death, seized the province of Egypt, and, a few years 
later, made himself King of that country, establishing 
himself at the newly founded city of Alexandria on the 
sea-coast. For two and a half centuries the dynasty 
presided over the destinies of Egypt, at first with solicit- 
ous care, and later with startling nonchalance, until, 
with the death of the great Cleopatra and her son 
Ptolemy XVI (Cesarion), the royal line came to an end. 

For the right understanding of Cleopatra’s charac- 
ter it must be clearly recognised that the Ptolemies 
were in no way Egyptians. They were Macedonians, as 
I have already said, in whose veins flowed not one drop 


*In hieroglyphs the name reads Kleopadra. It is a Greek name, meaning 
““Glory of her Race.” 


AA 


mates »y 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA A5 


of Egyptian blood. Their capital city of Alexandria 
was, in the main, a Mediterranean colony set down upon 
the sea-coast of Egypt, but having no connection with 
the Delta and the Nile Valley other than the purely 
commercial and official relationship which of neces- 
sity existed between the maritime seat of Government 
and the provinces. The city was Greek in character; 
the temples and public buildings were constructed in 
the Greek manner; the art of the period was Greek; the 
life of the upper classes was lived according to Greek 
habits; the dress of the court and of the aristocracy was 
Greek; the language spoken by them was Greek, pro- 
nounced, it is said, with the broad Macedonian accent. 
It is probable that no one of the Ptolemies ever wore 
Egyptian costume, except possibly for ceremonial pur- 
poses; and, in passing, it may be remarked that the 
modern conventional representation of the great Cleo- 
patra walking about her palace clothed in splendid 
Egyptian robes and wearing the vulture-headdress of 
the ancient queens has no justification.? It is true that 
she is said to have attired herself on certain occasions in 
a dress designed to simulate that which was supposed 
by the priests of the time to have been worn by the 
mother-deity Isis; but contemporaneous representations 
of Isis generally show her clad in the Greek and not the 
Egyptian manner. And if she ever wore the ancient 
dress of the Egyptian queens, it must have been only at 
great religious festivals or on occasions where conform- 
ity to obsolete habits was required by the ritual. 


? Representations of Cleopatra or other sovereigns of the dynasty dressed in 
Egyptian costume are probably simply traditional. 


46 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The relationship of the royal house to the people 
was very similar to that existing at the present day 
between the royal dynasty and the provincial natives of 
Egypt. The modern sovereigns are Albanians, who 
cannot record in their genealogy a single Egyptian an- 
cestor. They live in the European manner, and dress 
according to the dictates of Paris and London. Simi- 
larly the Ptolemies retained their Macedonian national- 
ity, and Plutarch tells us that not one of them even 
troubled to learn the Egyptian language. On the other 
hand the Egyptians, constrained by the force of cir- 
cumstances, accepted the dynasty as the legal successor 
of the ancient Pharaonic line, and assigned to the 
Ptolemies all the titles and dignities of their great 
Pharaohs. 

These Greek sovereigns, Cleopatra no less than her 
predecessors, were given the titles which had been so 
proudly borne by Rameses the Great and the mighty 
Thutmose the Third, a thousand years and more before 
their day. They were named, “Living Image of the 
God Amon,” “Child of the Sun,” and “Chosen cf 
Ptah,” just as the great Memnon and the conquerins 
Sesostris had been named when Egypt was the first 
power in the world. In the temples throughout the 
Jand, with the exception of those of importance at 
Alexandria, these Macedonian monarchs were pictori- 
ally represented in the guise of the ancient Pharaohs, 
crowned with the tall crowns of Upper and Lower 
Egypt, the horns and feathers of Amon upon their 
heads, and the royal serpent at their foreheads. There 
they were sen worshipping the old gods of Egypt, 


a 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 47 


prostrating themselves in the presence of the cow 
Hathor, bowing before the crocodile Sobk, burning in- 
cense at the shrine of the cat Bast, and performing all 
the magical ceremonies hallowed by the usage of four 
thousand years. They were shown enthroned with the 
gods, embraced by Isis, saluted by Osiris, and kissed by 
Mout, the Mother of Heaven. Yet it is doubtful 
whether in actual fact any Ptolemy at any time identi- 
fied himself in this manner with the traditional character 
of a Pharaoh. 

Very occasionally one of these Greek sovereigns left 
his city of Alexandria to visit Egypt proper, and to 
travel up the Nile. At certain cities he honoured the 
local temple with a visit and performed in a perfunctory 
manner the prescribed ceremonies, just as a modern 
sovereign lays a foundation-stone or launches a ship. 
But there is nothing to show that any member of the 
royal house regarded himself as an Egyptian in the 
traditional sense of the word. They were careful as a 
rule to placate the priesthood, and to allow them a free 
use of their funds in the building and decoration of the 
temples; and Egyptian national life was fostered to a 
very considerable extent. But in Alexandria one might 
hardly have believed oneself to be in the land of the 
Pharaohs, and the court was almost entirely European 
in character. 

The Ptolemies as a family were extraordinarily cal- 
lous in their estimate of the value of human life, and 
the history of the dynasty is marked throughout its 
whole length by a series of villamous murders. In this 
respect they showed their non-Egyptian blood; for the 


48 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


people of the Nile were, and now are, a kindly, pleasant 
folk, not predisposed to the arts of the assassin and not 
by any means regardless of the rights of their fellow- 
men. It may be of interest to record here some of the 
murders for which the Ptolemies are responsible. 
Ptolemy ITI, according to Justin, was murdered by his 
son Ptolemy IV, who also seems to have planned at one 
time and another the murders of his brother Magas, 
his uncle Lysimachus, his mother Berenice, and his wife 
Arsinoe. Ptolemy V is described as a cruel and violent 
monarch, who seems to have indulged the habit of mur- 
dering those who offended him. Ptolemy VII is said by 
Polybius to have had the Egyptian vice of riotousness, 
although on the whol averse to shedding blood. 
Ptolemy VIII murdered his young nephew, the heir to 
the throne, and married the dead boy’s mother, the 
widowed Cleopatra II, who shortly afterwards pre- 
sented him with a baby, Memphites, whose paternal 
parentage is doubtful. Ptolemy later, according to 
some accounts, murdered this child and sent his body in 
pieces to the mother. He then married his niece, 
Cleopatra III; and she, on being left a widow, appears 
to have murdered Cleopatra Il. This Cleopatra III 
bore a son who later ascended the throne as Ptolemy 
XI, whom she afterwards attempted to murder, but 
the tables being turned she was murdered by him. 
Ptolemy X was driven from the throne by his mother, 
who installed Ptolemy XI in his place, and was promptly 
murdered by the new king for her pains. Ptolemy XII, 
having married his stepmother, murdered her, and him- 
self was murdered shortly afterwards. Ptolemy XIII, 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 49 


the father of the great Cleopatra, murdered his daughter 
Berenice and also several other persons. 

The women of this family were even more violent 
than the men. Mahaffy describes their characteristics 
in the following words: 


“Great power and wealth, which makes an alliance with 
them imply the command of large resources in men and 
money; mutual hatred; disregard of all ties of family and 
affection; the dearest object fratricide—such pictures of 
depravity as make any reasonable man pause and ask 
whether human nature had deserted these women and the 
Hyrcanian tiger of the poet taken its place.”’ 


In many other ways also this murderous family of kings 
possessed an unenviable reputation. The first three 
Ptolemies were endowed with many sterling qualities, 
and were conspicuous for their talents; but the remain- 
ing monarchs of the dynasty were, for the most part, 
degenerate and debauched. They were, however, pa- 
trons of the arts and sciences, and indeed they did 
more for them than did almost any other royal house 
in the world. Ptolemaic Alexandria was to some 
extent the birthplace of the sciences of anatomy, 
geometry, conic sections, hydrostatics, geography, and 
astronomy, while its position in the artistic world was 
most important. The splendour and luxury of the 
palace was far-famed, and the sovereign lived in a 
chronic condition of repletion which surpassed that of 
any other court. When Scipio Africanus visited Egypt 
he found our Cleopatra’s great-grandfather, Ptolemy 
IX, who was nicknamed Physkon, “the Bloated,”’ fat, 
puffing, and thoroughly over-fed. As Scipio walked to 


50 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the palace with the king, who, in too transparent robes, 
breathed heavily by his side, he whispered to a friend 
that Alexandria had derived at least one benefit from 
his visit—it had seen its sovereign taking a walk. 
Ptolemy X, Cleopatra’s grandfather, obtained the nick- 
name “Lathyros,”’ owing, it is said, to the resemblance 
of his nose to a vetch or some such flowery and legumin- 
ous plant; a fact which certainly suggests that the king 
was not a man of temperate habits. Ptolemy XI was so 
bloated by gluttony and vice that he seldom walked 
without crutches, though, under the influence of wine, 
he was able to skip about the room freely enough with 
his drunken comrades. Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s 
father, had such an objection to temperance that once 
he threatened to put the philosopher Demetrius to 
death for not being intoxicated at one of his feasts; and 
the unfortunate man was obliged the next day publicly 
to drink himself silly in order to save his life. Such 
glimpses as these show us the Ptolemies at their worst, 
and we are constrained to ask how it is possible that 
Cleopatra, who brought the line to a termination, 
could have failed to be a thoroughly bad woman. Yet 
as will presently become apparent, there is no great 
reason to suppose that her sins were many. 

Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XIII, who went by the 
nickname of Auletes, “the Piper,’’ was a degenerate 
little man, who passes across Egypt’s political stage in a 
condition of almost continuous inebriety. We watch his 
drunken antics as he directs the Bacchic orgies in the 
palace; we see him stupidly plotting and scheming to 
hold his tottering throne; we hear him playing the live- 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 51 


long hours away upon his flute; and we feel that his 
deeds would be hardly worth recording were it:not for 
the fact that in his reign is seen the critical develop- 
ment of the political relationship between Rome and 
Egypt, which, towards the end of the Ptolemaic 
dynasty, came to have such a complicated bearing upon 
the history of both countries. After the battle of 
Pydna (B.c. 167) Rome had obtained almost absolute 
control of the Hellenistic world, and she soon began to 
lay her hands on all the commerce of the eastern Medi- 
terranean. Towards the close of the Ptolemaic period 
the great Republic turned eager eyes towards Egypt, 
watching for an opportunity to seize that wealthy land 
for her own enrichment. 

Reference to the genealogy at the end of this volume. 
will show the reader that the main line of the Lagidze 
came to an end on the assassination (after a reign of 
nineteen days) of Ptolemy XII (Alexander IT), who had 
been raised to the throne by Roman help. The only 
legitimate child of Ptolemy X (Soter IT) was Berenice 
III, the cousin of Ptolemy XII, who had been married 
to him, the union, however, producing no heir to the 
throne. Ptolemy X had two sons, the half-brothers of 
Berenice III, but they were both illegitimate, the name 
and status of their mother being now unknown. It is 
possible that they were the children of Cleopatra IV, 
who was divorced from their father at his accession; or 
it is possible that the lady was not of royal blood. On 
the death of Ptolemy XII one of these two young men 
proclaimed himself Pharaoh of Egypt, being known to 
us as Ptolemy XIII, and the other announced himself 


52 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


as King of Cyprus, also under the name of Ptolemy. 
The people of Alexandria at once accepted Ptolemy 
XIII as their king, for, whether illegitimate or not, he 
was the eldest male descendent of the line, and their 
refusal to accept his rule would have brought the 
dynasty to a close, thereby insuring an immediate 
Roman occupation. Cicero speaks of the new monarch 
as nec regio genere ortus, which implies that whoever 
his mother might be, she was not a reigning queen at 
the time of his birth; but the Alexandrian populace 
were in no mood to raise scruples in regard to his origin, 
when it was apparent that he alone stood between their 
liberty and the stern domination of Rome. 

No sooner had he ascended the throne, however, 
with the title of Ptolemy (XIII) Neos Dionysos, than 
the discovery was made that Ptolemy XII, under his 
name of Alexander, had in his will appomted the Roman 
Republic his heir, thus voluntarily bringing his dynasty 
to a close. Such a course of action was not novel. It 
had already been followed in the case of Pergamum, 
Cyrene, and Bithynia, and it seems likely that Ptolemy 
XII had taken this step in order to obtain the financial 
or moral support of the Romans in regard to his acces- 
sion, or for some equally urgent reason. The Senate 
acknowledged the authenticity of the will, which of 
course, the party of Ptolemy XIII had denied. It had 
been suggested that the testator was not Ptolemy XII 
at all, but another Alexander, Ptolemy XI (Alexander 
I), or an obscure person sometimes referred to as Alex- 
ander III. There is little question, however, that the 
will was genuine enough; but there is considerable 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 53 


doubt as to whether it was legally valid. In the first 
place, it was probably written before Ptolemy XII suc- 
ceeded to the kingdom; and in the second place, such 
a will would only be valid were there no heir to the 
throne; but the people of Alexandria had accepted 
Ptolemy XIII as the rightful heir. At all events the 
Senate, while seizing, by virtue of the document, as 
much of the private fortune of the testator as they 
could lay hands on, took no steps to dethrone the two 
new kings, either of Egypt or Cyprus, though, on 
the other hand, they did not officially recognise them. 
In this attitude they were influenced also by the 
fact that a large party in Rome did not wish to see the 
Republic further involved in Oriental affairs, nor did 
they feel at the moment inclined to place in the hands of 
any one man such power as would accrue to the official 
who should be appointed as Governor of the new pro- 
vince. Egypt was regarded as a very wealthy and im- 
portant country, second only to Rome in the extent of 
its power. It held the keys to the rich lands of the 
south, and to Arabia and India it seemed to be one of 
the main gateways. The revenues of the palace 
of Alexandria were quite equal to the public income of 
Rome at this time; and, indeed, even at a later date, 
after Pompey had so greatly augmented the yearly sum 
in the Treasury, the wealth of the Egyptian Court was 
not far short of this increased total. Alexandria had 
succeeded Athens as the seat of culture and learning, 
and it was now regarded as the second city in the 
world. It was therefore felt that the armies and the 


3 Mommsen. 


54 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


generals sent over the sea to this distant land might 
well run the risk of being absorbed into the life of the 
country which they were holding, and might as it were 
inevitably set up an Eastern Empire which would be a 
menace, and even a terror, to Rome. 

The new King of Egypt, whom we may now call by 
his nickname Auletes, was much disturbed by the 
existence of this will, and throughout his reign he was 
constantly making efforts to buy off the expected inter- 
ference of Rome. He was an unhappy and unfortunate 
man. All he asked was to be allowed to enjoy the royal 
wealth in drunken peace, and not to be bothered by 
the haunting fear that he might be turned out of his 
kingdom. He was a keen enjoyer of good living, and 
there was nothing that pleased him so much as the 
participation in one of the orgies of Dionysos. He 
played the pipes with some proficiency, and, when he 
was sober, it would seem that he spent many a con- 
tented hour piping pleasantly in the sun. Yet his reign 
was continuously overshadowed by this knowledge 
that the Romans might at any moment dethrone him; 
and one pictures him often giving vent to an evening 
melancholy by blowing from his little flute one of those 
wailing dirges of his native land, which flutter upon the 
ears like the notes of a nightingale and drift at last 
upon a half-tone into silence. 

In the fifth year of his reign, that is to say in B.c. 75, 
his kinswoman, Selene, sent her two sons to Rome with 
the object of obtaining the thrones of Egypt, Cyprus, 
and Syria; and Auletes must have watched with anxiety 
their attempts to oust him. He knew that they were 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 5b 


giving bribes right and left to the Senators, in order to 
effect their purpose, and he was aware that in this man- 
ner alone the heart of the Roman Republic could be 
touched; yet for the time being he avoided these 
methods of expending his country’s revenue, and after 
a while, he had the satisfaction of hearing that Selene 
had abandoned her efforts to obtain recognition. In 
the thirteenth year of his reign, Pompey sent a fleet 
under Lentulus Marcellinus to clear the Egyptian coast 
of pirates, and when Lentulus was made consul he 
caused the Ptolemaic eagle and thunderbolt to be dis- 
played upon his coins to mark the fact that he had 
exercised an act of sovereignty in connection with that 
country. Three years later another Roman fleet was 
sent to Alexandria to impose the will of the Senate in 
regard to certain disputed questions; and once more 
Auletes must have suffered from the terrors of im- 
minent dethronement. 

In B.c. 65 he was again disturbed from his bibulous 
ease by the news that the Romans were thinking of 
sending Crassus or Julius Cesar to annex his kingdom; 
but the scheme came to naught, and for a time Auletes 
was left in peace. In B.c. 63 Pompey annexed Syria to 
the Roman dominions, and thereupon Auletes sent him 
a large present of money and military supplies in order 
to purchase his friendship. At the same time he in- 
vited him to come to Egypt upon a friendly visit, but 
Pompey, while accepting the King’s money, did not 
think it necessary to make use of his hospitality. 

At last, in B.c. 59, Auletes decided to go himself to 
_ Rome, in the hope of obtaining, through the good of- 


56 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fices of Pompey, or of Cesar, who was Consul in that 
year, the official recognition by the Senate of his right 
to the Egyptian throne. Being so degenerate and so 
worthless a personage, there was no likelihood that the 
Romans would confirm him in his kingdom unless they 
were well paid to do so, and he therefore took with him 
all the money he could lay his hands upon. In Rome, 
as Mommsen says, “men had forgotten what honesty 
was. A person who refused a bribe was regarded not as 
an upright man, but as a personal foe.”’ Auletes, there- 
fore, when he had arrived, gave huge bribes to various 
Senators in order to obtain their support, and he ap- 
pears to have been most systematically fleeced by the 
acute magnates of Rome. When for the moment his 
Egyptian resources were exhausted, he borrowed a 
large sum from the great financier, Rabirius Postumus, 
who persuaded some of his friends also to lend the king 
money. These men formed a kind of syndicate to 
finance Auletes, on the understanding that if he were 
confirmed in his heritage, they should each receive in 
return a sum vastly greater than that which they had 
put in. 

The visit of Auletes to Rome was made in the nick 
of time. The Pirate and the Third Mithridatic wars 
had left the Republic in pressing need of money, and 
there was much talk in regard to the advantages of an 
immediate annexation of Egypt. Crassus, the tribune 
Rullus, and Julius Cesar had shown themselves anxious 
to take the country without delay; and the unfortunate 
King of Egypt thus found himself in a most desperate 
position. At last, however, a bribe of 6000 talents 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 57 


(about a million and a half sterling) induced the nearly 
bankrupt Cesar to give Auletes the desired recogni- 
tion, and the disgraceful transaction came to a tempor- 
ary conclusion with Cesar’s violent forcing of his 
“Julian Law concerning the King of Egypt”’ through 
the Senate, whereby Ptolemy was named the “ally and 
friend of the Roman people.” 

Tn the next year, B.c. 58, the Romans, still in need of 
money, prepared to annex Cyprus, over which Ptolemy, 
the brother of Auletes, was reigning. The annexation 
had been proposed by Publius Clodius, a scoundrelly 
politician, who bore a grudge against the Cyprian 
Ptolemy owing to the fact that once when Clodius was 
captured by pirates, Ptolemy had only offered two 
talents for his ransom. Ptolemy would not now buy off 
the invaders as his brother had done, and in conse- 
quence Cato landed on the island and converted it into 
part of the Roman province of Cilicia. Ptolemy, with 
a certain royal dignity, at once poisoned himself, prefer- 
ring to die than to suffer the humiliation of banishment 
from the throne which he had usurped. His treasure of 
7000 talents (some £1,700,000) fell into the hands of 
Cato, who having, no doubt, helped himself to a portion 
of the booty,‘ handed the remainder over to the benign 
Senate. 

No sooner had Auletes obtained the support of 
Rome, however, than his own people of Alexandria, in- 
censed by the increase of taxation necessary for paying 
off his debts, and angry also at the king’s refusal to 
seize Cyprus from the Romans, rose in rebellion and 

4 Or do I wrong the hero of Utica? 


58 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


drove him out of Egypt. While the wretched man was 
on his way to Rome, he put in at Rhodes, where he had 
heard that Cato was staying, in order to obtain some 
help from this celebrated Senator; and, having had few 
personal dealings with Romans, he sent a royal invita- 
tion or command to Cato to come to him. The Senator, 
however, who that day was suffering from a bilious at- 
tack, and had just swallowed a dose of medicine, was in 
no mind to wait upon drunken kings. He therefore 
sent a message to Auletes stating that if he wished to 
see him he had better come to his lodgings in the town; 
and the King of Egypt was thus obliged to humble him- 
self to find his way to the Senator’s house. Cato did 
not even rise from his seat when Auletes was ushered in; 
but straightway bidding the king be seated, gave him a 
severe lecture on the folly of going to Rome to plead his 
cause. All Egypt turned into silver, he declared, would 
hardly satisfy the greed of the Romans whom he 
would have to bribe, and he strongly urged him to re- 
turn to Egypt and to make his peace with his subjects. 
The Senator’s bilious attack, however, seems to have cut 
short the interview, and Auletes, unconvinced, set sail 
for Italy. 

Meanwhile the King’s daughter, Berenice IV, had 
seized the Egyptian throne, and was reigning serenely 
in her father’s place. This princess and her sister, Cleo 
patra VI, who died soon afterwards, were the only two 
children of Auletes’ first marriage—namely, with Cleo- 
patra V. There were four young children in the palace 
nurseries who were born of a second marriage, but who 
their mother was, or whether she was at this time alive 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 59 


or dead, history does not record. Of these four children, 
two afterwards succeeded to the throne as Ptolemy 
XIV and Ptolemy XV; a third was the unfortunate 
Princess Arsinoe, and the fourth was the great Cleo- 
patra VII, the heroine of the present volume, at the 
time about eleven years of age, having been born in the 
winter of B.c. 69-68. 

Auletes having fled to Rome, approached the Senate 
in the manner of one who had been unjustly evicted 
from an estate which he had purchased from them. 
Again he bribed the leading statesmen, and again bor- 
rowed money on all sides, though now it is probable 
that his Roman creditors were less sanguine than on the 
previous occasion. Cesar was absent in Gaul at this 
time, and therefore was not able to be bribed. Pompey, 
curiously enough, does not appear to have accepted the 
King’s money, though he offered him the hospitality of 
his villa in the Alban district, a fact which suggests 
that the idea of restoring Auletes to his throne had 
made a strong appeal to the imagination of this 1mpres- 
sionable Roman. He had already made himself a kind 
of patron of the Egyptian Court, and there can be little 
doubt that he hoped to obtaim from Auletes in return 
for his favours, the freedom to make use of the wealth 
and resources of that monarch’s enormously valuable 
dominion. 

The people of Alexandria, who were eagerly desir- 
ous that Auletes should not be reinstated, now sent an 
embassy of a hundred persons to Rome to lay before the 
Senate their case against the king; but the banished 
monarch, driven by despair to any lengths, hired assas- 


60 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


sins and caused the embassy to be attacked near 
Puteoli, the modern Pozzuoli, many of them being 
slam. Those who survived were heavily bribed, and 
thus the crime was hushed up. The leader of the depu- 
tation, the philosopher Dion, escaped on this occasion, 
but was poisoned by Auletes as soon as he arrived in 
Rome; and thereupon the desperate king was able to 
breathe once more in peace. All might now have gone 
well with his cause, and a Roman army might have been 
placed at his disposal had not some political opponent 
discovered in the Sibylline Books an oracle which stated 
that if the King of Egypt were to come begging for help 
he should be aided with friendship but not with arms. 
Thereat, in despair, the unfortunate Auletes quitted 
Rome, and took up his residence at Ephesus, leaving 
in the capital an agent named Ammonios to keep him 
in touch with events. 

Three years later, in January, B.c. 55, the King’s 
interests were still being discussed, and Pompey was 
trying, in a desultory manner, to assist him back to his 
throne; but so great were the fears of the Senate at 
placing the task in the hands of any one man, that no 
decision could be arrived at. It was suggested that 
Lentulus Spinther, the Governor of Cilicia, should 
evade the Sibylline decree by leaving Auletes at Ptole- 
mais (Acre) and going himself to Egypt at the head of 
an army; but the king no doubt saw in this an attempt 
by the wily Romans simply to seize his country, and 
he appears to have opposed the plan with understand- 
able vehemence. It was then proposed that Lentulus 
should take no army, but should trust to the might of 


EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 61 


the Roman name for his purpose, thereby following the 
advice of the prophetic Books. 

At last, however, Auletes offered the huge bribe of 
10,000 talents (nearly two and a half millions sterling) 
for the repurchase of his kingdom; and, as a conse- 
quence, the Governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, himself 
a bankrupt in sore need of money, arranged to invade 
Egypt and to place Auletes upon the throne in spite of 
the Sibylline warnings. Gabinius, being so deeply in 
debt, and knowing that a large portion of the promised 
sum would pass to him, was extremely eager to under- 
take the war, though it is said that he feared the possi- 
bility of disaster. He therefore pushed forward the 
arrangements for the campaign with all despatch, and 
soon was prepared to set out across the desert to Egypt. 

Meanwhile the Alexandrians had married Berenice 
IV to Archelaus, the High Priest of Komana in Cap- 
padocia, an ambitious man of great influence and 
authority, a protégé of Pompey the Great, who had 
been raised to the High Priesthood by him in B.c. 64, 
and who at once attempted, but without success, to 
obtain through him the support of Rome. Gabinius 
was not long in declaring war against Archelaus, under 
the pretext that he was encouraging piracy along the 
North African coast, and also that he was building a 
fleet which might be regarded as a menace to Rome; and 
soon his army was marching across the desert from Gaza 
to Pelusium. The cavalry which was sent in advance 
of the main army was commanded by Marcus Antonius, 
at this time a smart young soldier whose future lay all 
golden before him. The frontier fortress of Pelusium 


62 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fell to his brilliant generalship, and soon the Roman 
legions were marching on Alexandria. The palace 
soldiery now joined the invaders, Archelaus was killed 
and the city fell. 

Auletes was at once restored to his throne, and 
Berenice IV was put to death. A large number of 
Roman infantry and Celtic and German cavalry, of 
whom we shall hear again, were left in the city to pre- 
serve order, and it would seem that for a short time 
Anthony remained in Alexandria. The young Princess 
Cleopatra was now a girl of some fourteen years of age, 
and already she is said to have attracted the Roman 
cavalry leader by her youthful beauty and charm. At 
the east end of the Mediterranean a girl of fourteen 
years 1s already mature, and has long arrived at what 
is called a marriageable age. There is probably little 
importance to be attached to this meeting, but it is not 
without interest as an earnest of future events. 

The Romans now began to demand payment of the 
various sums promised to them by Auletes. Rabirius 
Postumus appears to have been one of the largest credi- 
tors and the only way in which the king could pay him 
back was by making him Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
so that all taxes might pass through his hands. Rabirius 
also represented the interests of the importunate Julius 
Cesar and probably those of Gabinius. The situation 
was thus not unlike that which was found in Egypt in 
the ’seventies, when a European Commission was ap- 
pointed to handle all public funds in order that the 
ruler’s private debts might be paid off. In the case of 
Auletes, however, it was the leading Romans who were 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 63 


his creditors, and hence we find the shadow of the great 
republic hanging over the Alexandrian court, and Rome 
is seen to be inextricably mixed up with Egyptian affairs. 
Roman money had been lent and had to be regained; 
Roman. officials handled all the taxes; a Roman army 
occupied the city, and the king reigned by permission 
of the Roman Senate to whom his kingdom had been 
bequeathed. 

In B.c. 54 the Alexandrians made an attempt to shake 
off the incubus, and drove Rabirius out of Egypt. 
Roman attention was at once fixed upon Alexandria, 
and it is probable that the country would have been an- 
nexed immediately had not the appalling Parthian 
catastrophe in the following year, when Crassus was 
defeated and killed, diverted their minds to other 
channels. Auletes, however, did not live long to enjoy 
his dearly bought immunity; for in the summer of B.c. 
51 he passed away, leaving behind him the four chil- 
dren born to him of his second marriage with the un- 
known lady who was now probably dead. The famous 
Cleopatra, the seventh of the name, was the eldest of 
this family, being, at her father’s death, about eighteen 
years of age. Her sister Arsinoe, whom she heartily dis- 
liked, was a few years younger. The third child was a 
boy of ten or eleven years of age, afterwards known as 
Ptolemy XIV; and lastly, there was the child who later 
became Ptolemy XV, now a boy of seven.’ Auletes, 
warned by his own bitter experiences, had taken the 


5’ Porphyry says he died in the eighth year of Cleopatra’s reign, and 
Josephus states that he was fifteen years of age at his death. This would make 
him about seven years old at Cleopatra’s accession, which seems probable 
enough. 


64 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


precaution to write an explicit will in which he stated 
clearly his wishes in regard to the succession. One copy 
of the will was kept at Alexandria, and a second copy, 
duly attested and sealed, was placed in the hands of 
Pompey at Rome, who had befriended the king when 
he was in that city, with the request that it should be 
deposited in the @rarium. In this will Auletes decreed 
that his eldest surviving daughter and eldest surviving 
son should reign jointly; and he called upon the Roman 
people in the name of all their gods and in view of all 
their treaties made with him, to see that the terms of 
his testament were carried out. He further asked the 
Roman people to act as guardian to the new king, as 
though fearing that the boy might be suppressed, or 
even put out of the way by his co-regnant sister. At 
the same time he carefully urged them to make no 
change in the succession, and his words have been 
thought to suggest that he feared lest Cleopatra, in like 
manner, might be removed in favour of Arsinoe. Ina 
court such as that of the Ptolemies the fact that two 
sons and two daughters were living at the palace at the 
king’s death boded ill for the prospects of peace; and it 
would seem that Auletes’ knowledge that Cleopatra 
and Arsinoe were not on the best of terms gave rise in 
his mind to the greatest apprehension. Being aware 
of the domestic history of his family, and knowing that 
his own hands were stained with the blood of his daugh- 
ter Berenice, whom he had murdered on his return from 
exile, he must have been fully alive to the possibilities 
of internecine warfare amongst his surviving children; 
and, being in his old age sick of bloodshed and desiring 





Rome eee e ris Photograph by Anderson 
POMPEY THE GREAT 





va 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 65 


only a bibulous peace for himself and his descendants, 
he took every means in his power to secure for them that 
pleasant inertia which had been denied so often to 
himself. 

His wish that his eighteen-year-old daughter should 
reign with his ten-year-old son involved, as a matter of 
course, the marriage of the sister and brother, for the 
Ptolemies had conformed to ancient Egyptian customs 
to the extent of perpetuating when necessary a royal 
marriage between a brother and sister in this manner. 
The custom was of very ancient establishment in Egypt, 
and was based originally on the law of female succes- 
sion, which made the monarch’s eldest daughter the 
heiress of the kingdom. The son who had been selected 
by his father to succeed to the throne, or who aspired 
to the sovereignty either by right or by might, obtained 
his legal warrant to the kingdom by marriage with this 
heiress. When such an heiress did not exist, or when 
the male claimant to the throne had no serious rivals, 
this rule often seems to have been set aside; but there 
are few instances of its disuse when circumstances 
demanded a solidification of the royal claim to the 
throne. 

When, therefore, according to the terms of the will 
of Auletes, his eldest daughter and eldest son succeeded 
jointly to the throne as Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy 
XIV, their formal marriage was contemplated as a 
matter of course. There is no evidence of this marriage, 
and one may suppose that it was postponed by Cleo- 
patra’s desire, on the grounds of the extreme youth of 
the king. Marriages at the age of eleven or twelve 


66 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


years were not uncommon in ancient Egypt, but they 
were not altoget.er acceptable to Greek minds; and the 
queen could not have found much difficulty in making 
this her justification for holding the power in her own 
hands. The young Ptolemy XIV was placed in the 
care of the eunuch Pothemos, a man who appears to 
have been typical of that class of palace imtriguers 
with whom the historian becomes tediously familiar. 
The royal tutor, Theodotos, an objectionable Greek 
rhetorician, also exercised considerable influence in the 
court, and a third intimate of the king was an unscrupu- 
lous soldier of Egyptian nationality named Achillas, 
who commanded the troops in the palace. These three 
men very soon obtained considerable power, and, act- 
ing in the name of their young master, they managed to 
take a large portion of the government into their own 
hands. Cleopatra, meanwhile, seems to have suffered 
something of an eclipse. She was still only a young 
girl, and her advisers appear to have been men of less 
strength of purpose than those surrounding her brother’s 
person. The king being still a minor, the bulk of 
the formal business of the state was performed by the 
queen; but it would seem that the real rulers of the 
country were Potheinos and his friends. 

Some two or three years after the death of Auletes, 
Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus,* the pro-consular Gov- 
ernor of Syria, sent his two sons to Alexandria to order 
the Roman troops stationed in that city to join his army 
in his contemplated campaign against the Parthians. — 
These Alexandrian troops constituted the Army of Oc- — 

6 He had been Consul with Julius Cesar in 59. : 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 67 


cupation, which had been left in Egypt by Gabinius in 
B.C. 55 as a protection to Auletes. They were for the 
most part, as has been said, Gallic and German cavalry, 
rough men whose rude habits and bulky forms must 
have caused them to be the wonder and terror of the 
city. These Gabiniani milites had by this time settled 
down in their new home, and had taken wives to them- 
selves from the Greek and Egyptian families of Alex- 
andria. In spite of the presence amongst them of a 
considerable body of Roman infantry veterans who had 
fought under Pompey, the discipline of the army was 
already much relaxed; and when the Governor of 
Syria’s orders were received there was an immediate 
mutiny, the two unfortunate sons of Bibulus being 
promptly murdered by the angry and probably drunken 
soldiers. When the affair was reported to the palace, 
Cleopatra issued orders for the immediate arrest of the 
murderers; and the army, realising that their position 
as mutinous troops was untenable, handed over the 
ringleaders apparently without further trouble. The 
prisoners were then sent by the queen in chains to 
Bibulus; but he, being possessed of the best spirit of the 
old Roman aristocracy, sent back these murderers of 
his two sons to her with the message that the right of - 
inflicting punishment in such cases belonged only to 
the Senate. History does not tell us what was the 
ultimate fate of these men, and the incident is not of 
great importance, except in so far as it shows the first re- 
corded act of Cleopatra’s reign as being one of tactful de- 
liberation and fair dealing with her Roman neighbours. 

Shortly after this, in the year B.c. 49, Pompey sent 


68 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


his son, Cnzeus Pompeius, to Egypt, to procure ships 
and men in preparation for the civil war which now 
seemed inevitable; and the Gabinian troops, feeling that 
a war against Julius Cesar offered more favourable 
possibilities than a campaign against the ferocious 
Parthians, cheerfully responded to the call. Fifty war- 
ships and a force of 500 men left Alexandria with Cneeus, 
and eventually attached themselves to the command of 
Bibulus, who was now Pompey’s admiral in the Adria- 
tic. It is said that Cnzeus Pompeius was much at- 
tracted by Cleopatra’s beauty and charm, and that he 
managed to place himself upon terms of intimacy 
with her; but there is absolutely nothing to justify the 
suggestion that there was any sort of serious intrigue. 
I am of the opinion that the stories of this nature which 
passed into circulation were due to the fact that the 
possibility of a marriage between Cleopatra and the 
young Roman had been contemplated by Alexandrian 
politicians. The great Pompey was master of the 
Roman world, and a union with his son, on the analogy 
of that between Berenice and the High Priest of 
Komana, was greatly to be desired. The proposal, 
however, does not seem to have obtained much support 
and the matter was presently dropped. 

In the following year, B.c. 48, when Cleopatra was 
twenty-one years of age and her co-regnant brother 
fourteen, important events occurred in Alexandria of 
which history has left us no direct record. It would 
appear that the brother and sister quarrelled, and that 
the palace divided itself into two opposing parties. The 
young Ptolemy, backed by the eunuch Potheinos, the 





EARLY YEARS OF CLEOPATRA 69 


rhetorician Theodotos, and the soldier Achillas, set 
himself up as sole sovereign of Egypt; and Cleopatra 
was obliged to fly for her life into Syria. We have no 
knowledge of these momentous events; the struggle in 
the palace, the days in which the young queen walked 
in deadly peril, the adventurous escape, and the flight 
from Egypt. We know only that when the curtain is 
raised once more upon the royal drama, the young 
Ptolemy is King of Egypt, and, with his army, is sta- 
tioned on the eastern frontier to prevent the incur- 
sion of his exiled sister, who has raised an expeditionary 
force in Syria and is marching back to her native land 
to seize again the throne which she had lost. There is 
something which appeals very greatly to the imagina- 
tion in the thought of this spirited young queen’s rapid 
return to the perilous scenes from which she had so 
recently escaped; and the historian feels at once that he 
is dealing with a powerful character in this woman who 
could so speedily raise an army of mercenaries, and 
who could dare to march back in battle array across 
the desert towards the land which had cast her out. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE DEATH OF POMPEY AND THE ARRIVAL OF CASAR 
IN EGYPT 


THE fortress of Pelusium, near which the opposing 
armies of Ptolemy and Cleopatra were arrayed, stood 
on low desert ground overlooking the sea, not far east 
of the modern Port Said. It was the most easterly port 
sand stronghold of the Delta; and, being built upon the 
much-frequented highroad which skirted the coast be- 
tween Egypt and Syria, it formed the Asiatic gateway 
of the Ptolemaic kingdom. The young Ptolemy XIV 
had stationed himself, with his advisers and his soldiers, 
in this fortress, in order to oppose the entrance of his 
sister Cleopatra, who, as we have already seen, marched 
with a strong army back to Egypt from Syria, whither 
she had fled. On September 28th, B.c. 48, when Cleo- 
patra’s forces, having arrived at Pelusium, were pre- 
paring to attack the fortress and were encamped upon 
the sea-coast a few miles to the east of the town, an 
event occurred which was destined to change the whole 
course of Egyptian history. Round the barren head- 
land to the west of the little port, a Seleucian galley 
hove into sight, and cast anchor a short distance from 
the shore. Upon the deck of this vessel stood the de- 


feated Pompey the Great, and Cornelia, his wife, who, 
7 


ow Se 


ARRIVAL OF CASAR IN EGYPT 71 


flymg from the rout of Pharsalia, had come to claim the 
hospitality of the Egyptian King. The young monarch 
appears to have been warned of his approach, for Pom- 
pey had touched at Alexandria, and there, hearing 
that Ptolemy had gone to Pelusium, had probably sent 
a messenger to him overland and himself had sailed 
round by sea. The greatest flurry had been caused in 
the royal camp by the news, and for the moment the in- 
vasion of Cleopatra and the impending battle with her 
forces were quite forgotten in the excitement of the 
arrival of the man who for so long had been the mighty 
patron of the Ptolemaic Court. 

Egypt, like all the rest of the world, had been watch- 
ing with deep interest the warfare waged between the 
two Roman giants, Pompey and Cesar, confident in the 
success of the former; and the messenger of the defeated 
general must have brought the first authentic news of 
the result of the eagerly awaited battle. The sympath- 
ies of the Alexandrians were all on the side of the 
Pompeians, for the fugitive, who now asked a return of 
his former favours, had always been to them the gigantic 
representative of Roman patronage. They knew lit- 
tle, if anything, about Cesar, who had spent so many 
years in the far north-west; but Pompey was Rome it- 
self to them, and had always shown himself particularly 
desirous of acting, when occasion arose, in their behalf. 
For many years he had been, admittedly, the most 
powerful personage in Rome, and the civilised world 
had grovelled at his feet. Then came the inevitable 
quarrel with Julius Cesar, a man who could not tolerate 
the presence of a rival. Civil war broke out, and the 


72 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


two armies met on the plains of Pharsalia. It is not 
necessary to record here how Pompey’s patrician 
cavalry, in whom he confidently trusted, was defeated 
by Cesar’s hardened legions; how the foreign allies 
were awed into inactivity by the spectacle of the superb 
contest between Romans and Romans; how the debon- 
naire Pompey, realising’ his defeat, passed, dazed, to 
his pavilion, and sat there staring in front of him, until 
the enemy had penetrated to his very door, when, ut- 
tering the despairing cry, ‘‘ What! even into the camp?” 
he galloped from the field; and how Cesar’s men found 
the enemy’s tents decked in readiness for the celebra- 
tion of their anticipated victory, the doorways hung 
with garlands of myrtle, the floors spread with rich 
carpets, and the tables covered with goblets of wine and 
dishes of food. Pompey had fled to Larissa and thence 
to the sea, where he boarded a merchantman and set 
sail for Mitylene. Here, picking up his wife Cornelia, 
he made his way to Cyprus, where he transhipped to the 
galley in which he crossed to Egypt. He had expected, 
very naturally, to be received with courtesy by Ptolemy, 
who was to be regarded as his political protégé; and he 
had some undefined but cogent plans of gathering his 
forces together again and giving battle a second time 
to his enemies. At Pharsalia he had thought his power 
irrevocably destroyed, but on his way to Egypt he 
learnt that Cato had rallied a considerable number of 
his troops, and that his fleet, which had not come into 
action, was still loyal; and he therefore hoped that with 
Ptolemy’s expected help he might yet regain the 
mastery of the Roman world. 


ARRIVAL OF CAESAR IN EGYPT 73 


As soon as his approach was reported to the Egyp- 
tian King, a council of ministers was called, in order to 
decide the manner in which they should receive the 
fallen general. There were present at this meeting the 
three scoundrelly advisers of the youthful monarch 
whom we have already met; Potheinos, the eunuch, 
who was a kind of prime minister; Achillas, the Egyp- 
tian, who commanded the King’s troops; and Theo- 
dotos of Chios, the professional master of rhetoric, and 
tutor to Ptolemy. These three men appear to have 
organised the plot by which Cleopatra had been driven 
from Egypt; and, having the boy Ptolemy well under 
their thumbs, they seem to have been acting with zeal 
in his name for the advancement of their own fortunes. 
“Tt was, indeed. a miserable thing,” says Plutarch, “‘that the 
fate of the great Pompey should be left to the determinations 
of these three men; and that he, riding at anchor at a dis- 


tance from the shore, should be forced to wait the sentence 
of this tribunal.”’ 


Some of the councillors suggested that he should be 
politely requested to seek refuge in some other country, 
for it was obvious that Cesar might deal harshly with 
them if they were to befriend him. Others proposed 
that they should receive him and cast in their lot with 
him, for it was to be supposed, and indeed such was the 
fact, that he still had a very good chance of recovering 
from the fiasco of Pharsalia; and there was the danger 
that, if they did not do so, he might accept the assist- 
ance of their enemy, Cleopatra. Theodotos, however, 
pointing out, in a carefully reasoned speech, that both 
these courses were fraught with danger to themselves, 


74 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


proposed that they should curry favour with Ceesar by 
murdering their former patron, thus bringing the con- 
test to a close and thereby avoiding any risk of backing 
the wrong horse; “and,” he added with a smile, “a 
dead man cannot bite.”” The councillors readily ap- 
proved this method of dealing with the difficult situa- 
tion, and they committed its execution to Achillas, 
who thereupon engaged the services of a certain Roman 
officer named Septimius, who had once held a command 
under Pompey, and another Roman centurion named 
Salvius. The three men, with a few attendants, then 
boarded a small boat and set out towards the galley. 
When they had come alongside Septimius stood up 
and saluted Pompey by his military title; and Achillas 
thereupon invited him to come ashore in the smaller 
vessel, saying that the large galley could not make the 
harbour owing to the shallow water. It was now seen 
that a number of Egyptian battleships were cruising at 
no great distance, and that the sandy shore was alive 
with troops; and Pompey, whose suspicions were 
aroused, realised that he could not now turn back, but 
must needs place himself in the hands of the surly- 
looking men who had come out to meet him. His wife 
Cornelia was distraught with fears for his safety, but 
he, bidding her to await events without anxiety, lowered 
himself into the boat, taking with him two centurions, a 


freedman named Philip, and a slave called Scythes. As 
he bade farewell to Cornelia he quoted to her a couple — 


of lines from Sophocles— 


He that once enters at a tyrant’s door 
Becomes a slave, though he were free before; 


ARRIVAL OF CAESAR IN EGYPT 75 


and so saying, he set out towards the shore. A deep 
silence fell upon the little company as the boat passed 
over the murky water, which at this time of year is be- 
ginning to be discoloured by the Nile mud brought 
down by the first rush of the annual floods;' and in the 
damp heat of an Egyptian summer day the dreary 
little town and the barren colourless shore must have 
appeared peculiarly uninviting. In order to break the 
oppressive silence, Pompey turned to Septimius, and, 
looking earnestly upon him, said: “Surely I am not 
mistaken in believing you to have been formerly my 
fellow-soldier?’’ Septimius made no reply, but silently 
nodded his head; whereupon Pompey, opening a little 
book, began to read, and so continued until they had 
reached the shore. As he was about to leave the boat 
he took hold of the hand of his freedman Philip; but 
even as he did so Septimius drew his sword and stabbed 
him in the back, whereupon both Salvius and Achillas 
attacked him. Pompey spoke no word, but, groaning a 
little, hid his face with his mantle, and fell into the bot- 
tom of the vessel, where he was speedily done to death. 

Cornelia, standing upon the deck of the galley, wit- 
nessed the murder, and uttered so great a cry that it 
was heard upon the shore. Then, seeing the murderers 
stoop over the body and rise again with the severed 
head held aloft, she called to her ship’s captain to weigh 
_ anchor, and in a few moments the galley was making for 
the open sea and was speedily out of the range of pursuit. 
Pompey’s decapitated body, stripped of all clothing, 


« The end of September, owing to irregularities in the calendar, of which we 
shall presently hear more, corresponded to the middle of July. 


76 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


was now bundled into the water, and a short time after- 
wards was washed up by the breakers upon the sands 
of the beach, where it was soon surrounded by a crowd 
of idlers. Meanwhile Achillas and _ his accomplices 
carried the head up to the royal camp. 

The freedman Philip was not molested, and, pres- 
ently making his way to the beach, wandered to and 
fro along the desolate shore until all had retired to the 
town. Then, going over to the body and kneeling down 
beside it, he washed it with sea-water and wrapped it 
in his own shirt for want of a winding-sheet. As he was 
searching for wood wherewith to make some sort of 
funeral pyre, he met with an old Roman soldier who 
had once served under the murdered general; and to- 
gether these two men carried down to the water’s edge 
such pieces of wreckage and fragments of rotten wood 
as they could find, and placing the body upon the pile 
set fire to it. 

Upon the next morning one of the Pompeian 
generals, Lucius Lentulus, who was bringing up the two 
thousand soldiers whom Pompey had gathered together 
as a bodyguard, arrived in a second galley before 
Pelusium; and as he was being rowed ashore he ob- 
served the still smoking remains of the pyre. ‘Who is 
this that has found his end here?” he said, being still in 
ignorance of the tragedy, and added with a sigh, “ Pos- 
sibly even thou, Pompeius Magnus!’ And upon step- 
ping ashore, he, too, was promptly murdered. 

A few days later, on October 2nd, Julius Cesar, in 
hot pursuit, arrived at Alexandria, where he heard with 
genuine disgust of the miserable death of his great 


7. eS bee 


ARRIVAL OF CAESAR IN EGYPT 77 


enemy. Shortly afterwards, Theodotos presented him- 
self to the conqueror, carrying with him Pompey’s 
head and signet-ring; but Cesar turned in distress from 
the gruesome head, and taking only the ring in his hand, 
was for a moment moved to tears.?, He then appears to 
have dismissed the astonished Theodotos from his 
presence like an offending slave; and it was not long 
before that disillusioned personage fled for his life 
from Egypt. For some years, it may be mentioned, he 
wandered as a vagabond through Syria and Asia Minor; 
but at last, after the death of Ceesar, he was recognised 
by, Marcus Brutus, and, as a punishment for having in- 
stigated the murder of the great Pompey, was crucified 
with every possible ignominy. Czsar seems to have 
arranged that the ashes of his rival should be sent to his 
wife, Cornelia, by whom they were ultimately deposited 
at his country house near Alba; and he also gave orders 
that the piteous head should be buried near the sea, 
in the grove of Nemesis, outside the eastern walls of 
Alexandria, where, in the shade of the trees, a monu- 
ment was set up to him, and the ground around it laid 
out. Cesar then offered his protection and friendship 
to all those partisans of Pompey whom the Egyptians had 
imprisoned, and he expressed his great satisfaction at be- 
ing able thus to save the lives of his fellow-countrymen. 
It is not difficult to appreciate the consternation 
caused by Cesar’s attitude. Potheinos and Achillas at 
once realised that the disgrace of Theodotos awaited 
them unless they acted with the utmost circumspection, 


? According to Plutarch and others; but the incident is not mentioned in 
Ceesar’s memoirs. 


78 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


biding their time until, as was expected, Cesar should 
take his speedy departure, or until they might deal 
with this new disturber of their peace in the same man- 
ner in which they had disposed of the old. But Cesar 
had no intention of leaving Egypt in any haste, nor did 
he give them the desired opportunity of anticipating 
the Ides of March. With that audacious nonchalance 
which so often baffled his observers, he quietly decided 
to take up his residence in the Palace upon the Lochias 
Promontory at Alexandria, at that moment occupied 
by only two members of the Royal family, the younger 
Ptolemy and his sister, Arsinoe; and, as soon as suffi- _ 
cient troops had arrived to support him, he left his 
galley and landed at the steps of the imposing quay. 
Two amalgamated legions, 3200 strong, and 800 Celtic 
and German cavalry, disembarked with him, this small 
force having been considered by Ceesar sufficient for the — 

rounding up of the Pompeian fugitives, and for the 
secondary purpose for which he had come to Egypt. | 
Cesar’s object in hastening across the Mediterra- 
nean had been, primarily, the capture of Pompey and 
his colleagues, and the prevention of a rally under the — 
shelter of the King of Egypt’s not inconsiderable arma- 
ments. It appears to have been his opinion that speed 
of pursuit would be more effective than strength of — 
arms, and that his undelayed appearance at Alexandria 
would more simply discourage the undetermined Egyp- 
tians from rendering assistance to their former friend — 
°I do not know any record of what became of the 2000 men of Pompey’s _ 


bodyguard. They probably fled back to Europe on the death of their com- _ 
manding officer. | 





ARRIVAL OF CASAR IN EGYPT 79 


than a display of force at a later date. Fresh from the 
triumph of Pharsalia, with the memory of that astound- 
ing victory to warm his spirits, he did not anticipate 
any great difficulty in subjecting the Ptolemaic Court 
to his will, nor in demonstrating to them that he himself, 
and not the defeated Pompey, represented the authen- 
tic might of Rome. It would seem that he expected 
speedily to frustrate any further resort to arms, and to 
manifest his authority by acting ostentatiously in 
the name of the Roman people. He himself should 
assume the prerogatives lately held by Pompey, and 
should play the part of benevolent patron to the court 
of Alexandria so admirably sustained by his fallen rival 
for so many years. There were several outstanding 
matters in Egypt which, on behalf of his home govern- 
ment, he could regulate and adjust; and there is little 
doubt that he hoped by so doing to establish a despotic 
reputation in that important country which would re- 
tain for him, as apparent autocrat of Rome, a personal 
control of its affairs for many years to come. In spite 
of all that has been said to the contrary, I am of opinion 
that his return to Rome was not urgent; indeed, it seems 
to me that it could be postponed for a short time with 
advantage. Pompey had been a great favourite with 
the Italians, and it was just as well that the turmoil 
caused by his defeat and death should be allowed to 
subside, and that the bitter memories of a sanguinary 
war, which had so palpably been brought about by per- 
sonal rivalry, should be somewhat forgotten before the 
victor made his spectacular entry into Rome. At this 
time he was not at all popular in the capital, and indeed, 


80 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


six months previously he had been generally regarded 
as a criminal and adventurer; while, on the other hand, 
Pompey had been the people’s darling, and it would take 
some time for public opinion to be reversed. 

When, therefore, Czesar heard that the treacherous 
deeds of the Egyptian ministers had rendered his prim- 
ary action unnecessary, he determined to enter Alex- 
andria with some show of state, to take up his residence 
there for a few weeks, and to interfere in its internal 
affairs for his own advancement and for the consolida- 
tion of his power. 

With this object in view, his four thousand troops 
were landed, and he set out in procession towards the 
Palace, the lictors carrying the fasces and axes before 
him as in the consular promenades at Rome.+ No 
sooner, however, were these ominous symbols observed 
by the mob than a rush was made towards them; and 
for a time the attitude of the crowd became ugly, and 
menacing. The young king and his court were still at 
Pelusium, where his army was defending the frontier 
from the expected attack of Cleopatra’s invading 
forces; but there were in Alexandria a certain number 
of troops which had been left there as a garrison, and 
both amongst these men and amongst the heterogeneous 
townspeople there must have been many who realised 
the significance of the fasces. The city was full of 
Roman outlaws and renegades, to whom this reminder 
of the length of her arm could but bring foreboding and 
terror. To them Cesar’s formal entry meant the es- 


4 As consul he would have been entitled to twelve lictors, as Dictator to 
twenty-four; but we are not told which number he employed on this occasion. 





ARRIVAL OF CASAR IN EGYPT 81 


tablishment of that law from which they had fled; while 
to many a merry member of the crowd the stately pro- 
cession appeared to bring to Egypt at last that dismal 
shadow of Rome: by which it had so long been menaced. 
On all sides it was declared that this state entry into 
the Egyptian capital was an insult to the king’s majesty; 
and so, indeed, it was, though little did that trouble 
Ceesar, who was well aware now of his unassailable 
position in the councils of Rome. 

The city was in a ferment, and for some days after 
Cesar had taken up his quarters at the Palace, rioting 
continued in the streets, a number of his soldiers being 
killed in different parts of the town. He therefore sent 
post-haste to Asia Minor for reinforcements, and took 
such steps as were necessary for securing his position 
from attack. It is probable that he did not suppose the 
Alexandrians would have the audacity to make war 
upon him, or attempt to drive him from the city; but at 
the same time he desired to take no risks, for he seems 
at the moment to have been heartily sick of warfare and 
slaughter. The Palace and royal barracks in which his 
troops were quartered, being built mainly upon the 
Lochias Promontory, were easily able to be defended 
from attack by land—for, no doubt, in so turbulent a 
city, the royal quarter was protected by massive walls; 
and at the same time the position commanded the east- 
ern half of the Great Harbour and the one side of its 
entrance over against the Pharos Lighthouse. His ships 
lay moored under the walls of the Palace; and a means 
of escape was thus kept open which, if the worst came 


5 I quote the telling phrase used by Warde Fowler in his Social Life at Rome. 


82 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to the worst, might be used with comparative safety 
upon any dark night. I think the turbulence of the 
mob, therefore, did not much trouble him, and he was 
able to set about the task which he desired to perform 
with a certain degree of quietude. The Civil War had 
been a very great strain upon his nerves, and he must 
have looked forward to a few weeks of actual holiday 
here in the luxurious royal apartments which he had so 
casually appropriated. Summer at Alexandria is in 
many ways a delightful time of year; and one may 
therefore picture Cesar, at all times fond of luxury and 
opulence, now heartily enjoying these warm, breezy 
days upon the beautiful Lochias Promontory. The 
crisis of his life had been passed; he was now absolute 
master of the Roman world; and his triumphant entry 
into the capital, when, in a few weeks’ time, the pas- 
sions of the mob had cooled, was an anticipation pleas- 
ant enough to set his restless heart at ease, while he 
applied himself to the agreeable little task of regulating 
the affairs in Egypt. He had sent a courier to Rome 
announcing the death of Pompey, but it does not seem 
that this messenger was told to proceed with any great 
rapidity, for he did not arrive in the capital until near 
the middle of November. ° 

His first action was to send messengers to Pelusium 
strongly urging both Ptolemy and Cleopatra to cease 
their warfare, and to come to Alexandria in order to lay 
their respective cases before him. He chose to regard 
the settlement of the quarrel between the two sovereigns 

In interpreting the situation thus I am aware that I place myself at 


variance with the accepted view which attributes to Cesar an eagerness to 
return quickly to Rome. 





ARRIVAL OF CASSAR IN EGYPT 83 


as a particular obligation upon himself, for it was dur- 
ing his previous consulship that the late monarch, 
Auletes, had entrusted his children to the Roman 
people and had made the Republic the executors of his 
will; and, moreover, that will had been confided to the 
care of Pompey, whose position as patron of the Egyp- 
tian Court Ceesar was now anxious to fill. In response 
to the summons Ptolemy came promptly to Alexandria, 
with his minister Potheinos, arriving, I suppose, on 
about October 5th, in order to ascertain what on earth 
Cesar was doing in the Palace; and meanwhile Achillas 
was left in command of the army at Pelusium. On 
reaching Alexandria they seem to have been invited by 
Cesar to take up their residence in the Palace into 
which he had intruded, and which was now patrolled by 
his Roman troops, and apparently upon the advice of the 
unctuous Potheinos, the two of them made themselves 
as pleasant as possible to their new patron. Cesar at 
once asked Ptolemy to disband his army, but to this 
Potheinos would not agree, and immediately sent word 
to Achillas to bring his forces to Alexandria. Ceesar, 
hearing of this, obliged the young king to despatch two 
officers, Dioscorides and Serapion, to order Achillas to 
remain at that place. These messengers, however, 
were intercepted by the agents of Potheinos, one being 
killed and the other wounded; and two or three days 
later Achillas arrived at the capital at the head of the 
first batch of his army of some twenty thousand foot 
and two thousand horse,’ taking up his residence in that 
part of the city unoccupied by the Romans. Ceesar 


7 It is not certain whether the 2000 horse are to be included or not in the 
total of 20,000. 





84 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


thereupon fortified his position, deciding to hold as 
much of the city as his small force could defend— 
namely, the Palace and the Royal area behind it, in- 
cluding the Theatre, the Forum, and probably a por- 
tion of the Street of Canopus. The Egyptian army 
presented a pugnacious but not extremely formidable 
array,*® consisting as it did of the Gabinian troops, who 
had now become entirely expatriated, and had assumed 
to some extent the habits and liberties of their adopted 
country; a number of criminals and outlaws from Italy 
who had been enrolled as mercenary troops; a horde of 
Syrian and Cilician pirates and brigands; and, probably, 
a few native levies. But as Cesar now had with him in 
the Palace King Ptolemy, the little Prince Ptolemy, 
the Princess Arsinoe, and the minister Potheinos, who 
could be regarded as hostages for his safety, and four 
thousand of his war-hardened veterans, ensconced in a 
fortified position and supported by a business-like little 
fleet of galleys, I cannot see that he had any cause at 
the moment for alarm. One serious difficulty, however, 
presented itself. Immediately on arriving in Egypt he 
had sent orders to Cleopatra to repair to the Palace; 
and his task as arbiter in the royal dispute could not be 


performed until she arrived, nor could he expect to as- | 


sert his authority until her presence completed the 
group of interested persons under his enforced protec-. 
tion. Yet she could not dare to place herself in the 
hands of Achillas, nor rely upon him for a safe escort 
through the lines; and thus Cesar found himself in a 
dilemma. 


® In spite of the statement to the contrary in De Bello Alexandrino. 


ARRIVAL OF CASAR IN EGYPT 85 


The situation, however, was relieved by the pluck 
and audacity of the young queen. Realising that her 
only hope of regaining her kingdom lay in a personal 
presentation of her case to the Roman arbiter, she de- 
termined, by hook or by crook, to make her entry into 
the Palace. Taking ship from Pelusium to Alexandria, 
probably at the end of the first week of October, she 
entered a small boat when still some distance from the 
city, and thus, about nightfall, slipped into the Great 
Harbour, accompanied only by one friend, Apollodorus 
the Sicilian. She seems to have been aware that her 
brother and Potheinos were in residence at the Palace, 
together with a goodly number of their own attendants 
and servants; but there were no means of telling 
how far Cesar controlled the situation. Being unac- 
customed to the presence of a power more autocratic 
than that of her own royal house, she does not seem to 
have realised that Cesar was in absolute command of 
the Lochias, and that not he, but Ptolemy, was the 
guarded guest; and she felt that in landing at the Palace 
quays she was running the gravest risk of falling into 
the hands of her brother’s party and of being murdered 
before she could reach Ceesar’s presence. This fear, in- 
deed, may well have been justified, for there is no 
doubt that Ptolemy and Potheinos had considerable 
liberty of action within the precincts of the Palace; and, 
if the rumour had spread that Cleopatra was come, 
_ neither of them would have hesitated to put a dagger 
into her ribs in the first dark corridor through which she 
had to pass. Waiting, therefore, upon the still water 
under the walls of the Palace until darkness had fallen, 


86 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


she instructed Apollodorus to roll her up in the blankets 
and bedding which he had brought for her in the boat 
as a protection against the night air, and around the 
bundle she told him to tie a piece of rope which, I sup- 
pose, they found in the boat. She was a very small 
woman, and Apollodorus apparently experienced no 
difficulty in shouldering the burden as he stepped 
ashore. Bundles of this kind were then, as they are 
now, the usual baggage of a common man in Egypt, 
and were not likely to attract notice. An Alexandrian 
native at the present day thus carries his worldly goods 
tied up in his bedding, the mat or piece of carpet which 
serves him for a bedstead being wrapped around the 
bundle and fastened with a rope, and in ancient times 
the custom was doubtless identical. Apollodorus, who 
must have been a powerful man, thus walked through 
the gates of the Palace with the Queen of Egypt upon 
his shoulders, bearing himself as though she were no 
heavier than the pots, pans, and clothing which were 
usually tied up in this manner; and when challenged by 
the sentries he probably replied that he was carrying 
the baggage to one of the soldiers of Ceesar’s guard, and 
asked to be directed to his apartments. 

Ceesar’s astonishment when the bundle was untied 
in his presence, revealing the dishevelled little queen, 
must have been unbounded; and Plutarch tells us that 
he was at once “captivated by this proof of Cleopatra’s 
bold wit.” One pictures her bursting with laughter at 
her adventure, and speedily winning the admiration of 
the susceptible Roman, who delighted almost as keenly 
in deeds of daring as he did in feminine beauty. All 


ARRIVAL OF CAESAR IN EGYPT 87 


night long they were closeted together, she relating to 
him her adventures since she was driven from her king- 
dom, and he listening with growing interest, and al- 
ready perhaps with awakening love. And here it will 
be as well to leave them while some description is given 
of the appearance and character of the man who now 
found himself looking forward to the ensuing days of 
his holiday in Alexandria with an eagerness which it 
must have been difficult for him to conceal. 


CHAPTER V 
CAIUS JULIUS CASAR 


Wuen Cesar thus made the acquaintance of the 
adventurous young Queen of Egypt he was a man of 
advanced middle age. He had already celebrated his 
fifty-fourth birthday, having been born on July 12, 
B.C. 102, and time was beginning to mark him down. 
The appalling dissipations of his youth to some extent 
may have added to the burden of his years; and, though 
he was still active and keen beyond the common meas- 
ure, his face was heavily lined and seamed, and his 
muscles, I suppose, showed something of that tension 
to which the suppleness of early manhood gives place. 
Yet he remained graceful and full of the quality of 
youth, and he carried himself with the air of one con- 
scious of his supremacy in the physical activities of life. 
He was a lightly-built man, of an aristocratic type which 
is to be found indiscriminately throughout Europe, 
and which nowadays, by a convention of thought, is 
usually associated in the mind with the cavalry bar- 
racks or the polo-ground. He appeared to be, and was, 
a perfect horseman. It is related of him that in Gaul 
he bred and rode a horse which no other man in the 


army dared mount; and it was his habit to demonstrate 
88 


CAIUS JULIUS CASAR 89 


the firmness of his seat by clasping his hands behind his 
back and setting the horse at full gallop. Though by 
no means a small man, he must have scaled under ten 
stone, and in other days and other climes he might have 
been mistaken for a gentleman jockey. He was an ex- 
tremely active soldier, a clever, graceful swordsman, a 
powerful swimmer, and an excellent athlete. In battle 
he had proved himself brave, gallant, and cool-headed; 
and in his earlier years he had been regarded as a dash- 
ing young officer who was neither restrained in the per- 
formance of striking deeds of bravery nor averse to 
receiving a gallery cheer for his pains. Already at the 
age of twenty-one he had won the civic crown, the 
Victoria Cross of that period, for saving a soldier’s life 
at the storming of Mytilene. In action he exposed 
himself bare-headed amongst his men, cheering them 
and encouraging them by his own fine spirits; and it is 
related how once he laid hands on a distraught standard- 
bearer who was running to cover, turned him around, 
and suggested to him that he had mistaken the direction 
of the enemy. 

His thin, clean-shaven face, his keen, dark eyes, his 
clear-cut features, his hard, firm mouth with its whimsi- 
cal expression, and his somewhat pale and liverish 
complexion, gave him at first sight the appearance of 
one who, being by nature a sportsman and a man of the 
world, a fearless rider and a keen soldier, had enjoyed 
every moment of an adventurous life. He was particu- 
larly well groomed and scrupulously clean, and his 
scanty hair was carefully arranged over his fine, broad 
head. His toga was ornamented with an unusually 


90 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


broad purple stripe, and was edged with a long fringe. 
He loved jewellery, and on one occasion bought a single 
pearl for £60,000, which he afterwards gave to a lady 
of his acquaintance. Indeed, it is said that he only in- 
vaded Britain because he had heard that fine pearls 
were to be obtained there. There was thus a certain 
foppishness in his appearance, and a slight suggestion of 
conceit and personal vanity marked his manner, which 
gave the impression that he was not unaware of his 
good looks, nor desirous of concealing the fact of his 
disreputable successes with the fair sex. Yet he was at 
this time by no means an old roué. His great head, the 
penetration of his dark eyes, and the occasional stern- 
ness of his expression were a speedy indication that 
much lay behind these inoffensive airs and graces; and 
all those who came into his presence must have felt the 
power of his will and brain, even though direct observa- 
tion did not convey to them more than the pleasing 
outlines of an elderly cavalier’s figure. Regarded in 
certain lights and on certain occasions, the expression 
of his furrowed face showed the imagination, the roman- 
tic vision, and the artistic culture of his mind; but 
usually the qualities which were impressed upon a 
visitor who conversed with him at close quarters were 
those of keenness, determination, and, particularly, 
gentlemanliness, combined with the rather charming 
confidence of a man of fashion. His manner at all times 
was quiet and gracious; yet there was a certain fire, a 
controlled vivacity in his movements, which revealed 
the creative soldier and administrator behind the ideal 
aristocrat. His voice, though high, and sometimes 





CAIUS JULIUS CASAR 91 


shrill, was occasionally very pleasant to the ear; but 
notwithstanding the fact that he was a wonderful 
orator, there was a correctness in his choice of words 
which was occasionally almost pedantic. His manner 
of speech was direct and straightforward, and his 
honesty of purpose and loftiness of principle were not 
doubted save by those who chanced to be aware of his 
little regard for moral integrity. 

Cesar was, in fact, an extremely unscrupulous man. 
I do not find it possible to accept the opinion of his 
character held by most historians, or to suppose him to 
have been an heroic figure who lived and died for his 
lofty and patriotic principles. There was immense 
good in him, and he had the unquestionable merit of 
being a great man with vast ambitions for the orderly 
governance of the nations of the earth; but when he 
threw himself with such enthusiasm into the task of 
winning the heart of the harum-scarum young Queen 
of Egypt, it seems to me that he was very well qualified 
to deceive her, and to play upon her emotions with all 
the known arts and wiles of a wicked world. So notori- 
ous was his habit of leading women astray, that when 
he returned to Rome from his Gallic Wars, his soldiers 
sang a marching song in which the citizens were warned 
to protect their ladies from him lest he should treat 
them as he had treated all the women of Gaul. “Ur- 
bani, servate uxores,’ they sang; ‘“‘Caluum moechum 
adducimus.”’ 

He had no particular religion, not much honour, 
and few high principles; and in this regard all that can 
be said in his favour is that he was perfectly free from 


92 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


cant, never pretended to be virtuous, nor attempted to 
hide from his contemporaries the multitude of his sins. 
As a young man he indulged in every kind of vice, and 
so scandalous was his reputation for licentiousness that 
it was a matter of blank astonishment to his Roman 
friends when, nevertheless, he proved himself so brave 
and strenuous a soldier. His relationship with the 
mother of Brutus, who was thought to be his own son, 
shows that he prosecuted love intrigues while yet a boy. 
At one time he passed through a phase of extreme 
effeminacy, with its attendant horrors; and there was a 
period when he used to spend long hours each day in 
the practice of the mysteries of the toilet, being scented 
and curled and painted in the manner prescribed by 
the most degenerate young men of the aristocratic 
classes. Indeed, so effeminate was he, that after staying 
with his friend Nicomedes, the King of Bithynia, he 
was jestingly called Queen Bithynia; and on another 
occasion in Rome a certain wag, named Octavius, 
saluted Pompey as King and Cesar as Queen of Rome. 
His intrigues with the wives of his friends had been as fre- 
quent as they were notorious. No good-looking woman 
was safe from him, least of all those whom he had the 
opportunity of seeing frequently, owing to his friend- 
ship for their husbands or other male relatives. Not 
even political considerations checked his amorous in- 
clinations as may be judged from the fact that he made 
a victim of Mucia, the wife of Pompey, whose friend- 
ship he most eagerly desired at that time. 


“He was the inevitable co-respondent in every fashion- 
able divorce,” writes Oman; ‘‘and when we look at the list 





British Museum 


JULIUS CASAR 








CAIUS JULIUS CHSAR | 93 


of the ladies whose names are linked with his, we can only 
wonder at the state of society in Rome which permitted 
him to survive unscathed to middle age. The marvel is 
that he did not end in some dark corner, with a dagger 
between his ribs, long before he attained the age of thirty.” 


Being a brilliant opportunist, he made use of his suc- 
cess with women to promote his own interests, and at 
one time he is said to have conducted love intrigues 
with the wives of Pompey, Crassus, and Gabinius, all 
leaders of his political party. Even the knowledge of 
the habits of the young fops of the period, which he had 
acquired while emulating their mode of life, was turned 
to good account by him in after years. At the battle of 
Pharsalia, which had been fought but a few weeks be- 
fore his arrival in Egypt, he had told his troops who 
were to receive the charges of the enemy’s patrician 
cavalry that they should not attempt to hamstring the 
horses or strike at their legs, but should aim their blows 
at the riders’ faces, 


“in the hopes,” as Plutarch says, “that young gentlemen 
who had not known much of battles and wounds, but came, 
wearing their hair long, in the flower of their age and height 
of their beauty, would be more apprehensive of such blows 
and not care for hazarding both a danger at present and a 
blemish for the future. And so it proved, for they turned 
about, and covered their faces to safeguard them.”’ 


In regard to money matters, Cesar was entirely 
without principle. In his early years he borrowed vast 
sums on all sides, spent them recklessly, and seldom 
paid his debts save with further borrowed money. 
While still a young man he owed his creditors the sum 


94 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of £280,000; and though most of this had now been 
paid off by means of the loot from the Gallic Wars, 
there had been times in his life when ruin stared him in 
the face. Most of his debts were incurred in the first 
place in buying for himself a high position in Roman 
political life, and in the second place in paying the elec- 
tioneering expenses of candidates for office who would 
be likely to advance his power. He engaged the favour 
of the people by giving enormous public feasts, and on 
one occasion twenty-two thousand persons were enter- 
tained at his expense at a single meal. While he was 
eedile he paid for three hundred and twenty gladiatorial 
combats; and innumerable fétes and shows were given 
by him throughout his life, and were paid for by the 
tears and anguish of his conquered enemies. 

He was one of the most ambitious men who have 
ever walked the stage of life, his devouring passion for 
absolute power being at all times abnormal; and he 
cared not one jot in what manner he obtained or ex- 
pended money so long as his career was advanced by 
that means. He could not brook the thought of play- 
ing a secondary part in the world’s affairs, and nothing 
short of absolute autocracy satisfied his aspirations. 
While crossing the Alps on one occasion the poverty of a 
small mountain village was pointed out to him, and he 
was heard to remark that he would rather be first man 
in that little community than second man in Rome. 
On another occasion he was seen to burst into tears 
while reading the life of Alexander the Great, for the 
thought was intolerable to him that another -man 
should have conquered the world at an age when he 


CAIUS JULIUS CHSAR 95 


himself had done nothing of the kind. This restless 
“passion after honour,” as Plutarch terms it, was not 
apparent in his manner, and was not noticed save by 
those who knew him well. He was too gentlemanly, too 
well dressed, too beautifully groomed, to give the im- 
pression of one who was seeking indefatigably for his 
own advancement, and at whose heart the demons 
of insatiate ambition were so continuously gnawing. 
“When I see his hair so carefully arranged,” said Cicero, 
“and observe him adjusting it with one finger, I cannot 
imagine it should enter such a man’s thoughts to sub- 
vert the Roman State.’ Yet this elegant soldier, whose 
manners were so quietly aristocratic, whose charm was 
so delectable, would sink to any depths of moral de- 
pravity, whether financial or otherwise, in order to 
convert the world into his footstool. When he and 
Catullus were rival candidates for the office of Pontifex 
Maximus, the latter offered him a huge sum of money 
to retire from the contest; but Cesar, spurning the 
proffered bribe with indignation, replied that he was 
about to borrow a larger sum than that in order to buy 
the votes for himself. At another period of his amazing 
career he desired to effect the downfall of Cicero, who 
was much in his way, and circumstances so fell out 
that this could best be accomplished by the appoint- 
ment: of a certain young scamp named Clodius as 
tribune. Now Clodius was the paramour of Ceesar’s 
wife Pompeia, whom the Dictator had made co-respond- 
ent in the action for divorce which he had brought 
against that lady; yet, since it served his ambitious 
purpose, he did not now hesitate to obtain the appoimt- 


99 


96 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ment of this amorous rogue and use him for his infamous 
purposes. The story need not be here related of how 
Clodius had disguised himself as a woman, and had 
thus obtained admission to certain secret female rites 
at which Pompeia was officiating; how he had been dis- 
covered; how he had only escaped the death penalty 
for his sacrilege owing to the fact that the judges 
were afraid to condemn him since he was a favourite 
with the mob, and afraid to acquit him for fear of 
offending the nobility, and had therefore written 
their verdicts so illegibly that nobody could read them; 
and how Pompeia had been divorced by her husband, 
who had then made the famous remark that “‘Ceesar’s 
wife must be above suspicion”; but it will be apparent 
that Plutarch is justified in regarding the man’s ap- 
pointment to the tribuneship as one of the most dis- 
graceful episodes in the Dictator’s career. 

Ceesar’s first wife was named Cossutia, and was a 
wealthy heiress whom he had married for her money’s 
sake. Having, however, fallen in love with Cornelia, 
the daughter of Cinna, he divorced Cossutia, and 
wedded the woman of his heart, pluckily refusing to 
part with her when ordered to do so for political reasons 
by the terrible Sulla. Cornelia died in B.c. 68, and in 
the following year he married Pompeia, of whom we 
have just heard, in order to strengthen his alliance with 
Pompey, to whom she was related. Fs 

Ceesar’s marriage to Calpurnia, after the dismissal 
of Pompeia, again showed his indifference to the moral 
aspect of political life. Calpurnia was the daughter of 


Calpurnius Piso, the pupil and disciple of Philodemus — 


CAIUS JULIUS CASAR 97 


the Epicurean, a man whose verses in the Greek An- 
thology, and whose habits of life, were as vicious and 
poisonous as any in that licentious age. Cesar at once 
obtained the consulship for his disreputable father-in- 
law, thereby causing Cato to protest that it was in- 
tolerable that the government should be prostituted by 
such marriages, and that persons should advance one 
another to the highest offices in the land by means of 
women. Czesar went so far as to propose, shortly after 
this, that he should divorce Calpurnia and marry 
Pompey’s daughter, who would have to be divorced 
from her husband, Faustus Sulla, for the purpose; and 
that Pompey should marry Octavia, Cesar’s niece, 
although she was at that time married to C. Marcellus, 
and also would have to be divorced. 

There was a startling nonchalance in Cesar’s be- 
haviour, a studied callousness, which was not less 
apparent to his contemporaries than to us. His won- 
derful ability to squander other people’s money, his 
total disregard of principle, his undisguised satisfaction 
in political and domestic intrigue, revealed an unconcern 
which must inspire for all time the admiration of the 
criminal classes, and which, in certain instances, must 
appeal very forcibly to the imagination of all high- 
spirited persons. Who can resist the charm of the story 
of his behaviour to the pirates of Pharmacusa? For 
thirty-eight days he was held prisoner at that place by 
a band of most ferocious and bloodthirsty Cilicians, and 
during that time he treated his captors with a degree of 
reckless insouciance unmatched in the history of the 
world. When they asked him for a ransom of twenty 


98 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


talents (£5,000) he laughed in their faces, and said that 
he was worth at least fifty (£12,500), which sum he 
ultimately paid over to them. He insisted upon join- 
ing in their games, jeered at them for their barbarous 
habits, and ordered them about as though they were 
his slaves. When he wished to sleep he demanded that 
they should keep absolute silence as they sat over their 
camp-fires; or, when the mood pleased him, he took part 
in their sing-songs, read them his atrocious Latin verses 
(for he was ever a poor poet), and abused them soundly 
if they did not applaud. A hundred times a day he 
told them that he would have them all hanged as soon 
as he was free, a pleasantry at which the pirates laughed 
heartily, thinking it a merry jest; but no sooner was he 
released than he raised a small force, attacked his 
former captors, and, taking most of them prisoners, 
had them all crucified. Crucifixion is a form of death 
by torture, the prolonged and frightful agony of which 
is not fully appreciated at the present day, owing to a 
complacent familiarity with the most notorious case 
of its application; but Cesar being, on occasion, with 
all his indifference, a kind-hearted man, decided at the 
last moment mercifully to put an end to the agonies of 
his disillusioned victims, and with a sort of considerate 
nonchalance he therefore quietly cut their throats. 

He was not by any means a cruel man, and his kind- 
ness and magnanimity were often demonstrated. He 
shed tears, it will be remembered, upon seeing the 
signet-ring of his murdered enemy, Pompey; and in 
Rome he ordered that unfortunate soldier’s statues to 
be replaced upon the pedestals from which they had 


CAIUS JULIUS CHSAR 99 


been thrown. In warfare, however, he was often ruth- 
less, and had recourse to wholesale massacres which 
could hardly be regarded as necessary measures. At 
Uxellodunum and elsewhere he caused thousands of 
prisoners to be maimed by the hacking off of their right 
hands; and his slaughter of the members of the Senate 
of the Veneti seems to have been an unnecessary piece 
of brutality. His behaviour in regard to the Usipetes 
and Tencteri will always remain the chief stain upon 
his military reputation. After concluding peace with 
these unfortunate peoples, he attacked them when they 
were disarmed, and killed 430,000 of them—men, 
women and children. For this barbarity Cato proposed 
that he should be put in chains and delivered over to 
the remnant of the massacred tribes, that they might 
wreak their vengeance upon him. 

During his ten years’ campaigning in Gaul, he took 
800 towns by storm, subdued 300 states, killed a mil- 
lion men, and sent another million into slavery.' His 
cold-blooded execution of the brave Vercingetorix, after 
six years of captivity, seems more cruel to us, perhaps, 
than it did to his contemporaries; and it may be said in 
his favour that he treated the terrified remnant of the 
conquered peoples with justice and moderation. In 
spite of a kindly and even affable manner, his wit was 
caustic and his words often terribly bitmg. When a 
certain young man named Metellus, at that time 
tribune, had persistently questioned whether Cesar 
had a right to appropriate treasury funds in the prosecu- 
tion of his wars, Cesar threatened to put him to death 


t So the early writers state. 


100 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


if any more was heard of his dissent. “‘And this you 
know, young man,”’ said he, “is more disagreeable for 
me to say than to do.” He associated freely with all 
manner of persons, and although so obviously an aristo- 
crat, he was noted for his friendliness and tact in deal- 
ing with the lower classes. During his campaigns he 
shared all hardships with his men, and, consequently, 
was much beloved by them, in spite of their occasional 
objection to the heavy work or strenuous manceuvres 
which he required them to undertake. He was wont to 
travel in time of war at the rate of a hundred miles a 
day; and when a river or stream obstructed his progress 
he did not hesitate to dive straightway into the water 
and swim to the opposite shore. On the march he him- 
self usually slept in his litter, or curled up on the floor of 
his chariot, and his food was of the coarsest descrip- 
tion. At no time, indeed, was he a gourmet; and it is 
related how once he ate without a murmur some aspara- 
gus which had been treated with something very much 
like an ointment in mistake for sauce. In later life he 
drank no wine of any kind, an abstemiousness which 
was probably forced upon him by ill-health; and he who, 
in his early years, had been notorious for his dissipa- 
tions and luxurious living, was, at the time with which 
we are now dealing, famous for his abstinence. 

When Cesar arrived in Alexandria he was come 
direct from his great victory over Pompey at Pharsalia, 
and was now absolute master of the Roman world. His 
brilliant campaigns in Gaul had raised him to the high- 
est position in the Republic, and now that Pompey was 
dead he was without any appreciable rival. He carried 


CAIUS JULIUS CASAR 101 


himself with careful dignity, and presumed—dquite cor- 
rectly—that all eyes were turned upon him. He had, 
as Mommesen says, “a pleasing consciousness of his own 
manly beauty”; and the thought of his many brilliant 
victories and successful surmounting of all obstacles 
gave him the liveliest satisfaction. No longer was his 
elegant frame shaken with sobs at the envious thought 
of the exploits of Alexander the Great; but, since his 
insatiable ambition still urged him to make use of his 
opportunities, he was for the moment content to in- 
dulge his passion for conquest by attempting to win the 
affections of the charming, omnipotent, and fabulously 
wealthy Queen of Egypt. 


CHAPTER VI 


CLEOPATRA AND CSAR IN THE BESIEGED PALACE AT 
ALEXANDRIA 


THERE can be little doubt that Ceesar’s all-night 
interview with Cleopatra put an entirely new com- 
plexion upon his conception of the situation. Until the 
queen’s dramatic entry into the Palace, his main ob- 
ject in remaining for a short time at Alexandria, after 
he had been shown the severed head of the murdered 
Pompey, had been to assert his authority in that city of 
unrivalled commercial opulence, and at the same time 
to make full use of a favourable opportunity to rest his 
weary mind and body in the luxury of its royal residence 
and the perfection of its sun-bathed summer days, 
while Rome should be quieted down and made ready 
for hiscoming. But now anew factor had introduced it- 
self. He had found that the queen of this desirable and 
important country was a young woman after his own 
heart; a dare-devil girl, whose manners and beauty 
had fired his imagination, and whose apparent admira- 
tion for him had set him thinking of the uses to which 
he might put the devotion he confidently expected to 
arouse. She seems to have laid her case before him 


with frankness and sincerity. She had shown him how 
192 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 103 


her brother had driven her from the throne, in direct 
opposition to the will of her father, who had so earnestly 
desired the two of them to reign jointly and in harmony. 
And while she had talked to him through the long hours 
of the night, he must have found himself most willingly 
carried away by the desire to obtain her love, both for 
the pleasure which it might be expected to afford him 
and for the political advantage which would accrue 
from such an intercourse. Here was a simple means of 
bringing Egypt under his control—Egypt which was 
the granary of the world, the most important commer- 
cial market of the Mediterranean, the most powerful 
factor in eastern politics, and the gateway of the uncon- 
quered kingdoms of the Orient. He had made himself 
lord of the west; Greece and Asia Minor were, since the 
late war, at his feet; and now Alexandria, so long 
the support of Pompey’s faction, should come to him 
with the devotion of its queen. I do not hold with 
those who suppose him to have been led like a lamb to 
the slaughter by the wiles of Cleopatra, and to have 
succumbed to her charms in the manner of one whose 
passions have confused his brain, causing him to forget 
all things save only his desire. In consideration of the 
fact that the young queen was at that time, so far as we 
know, a woman of blameless character, and that he, on 
the contrary, was a man of the very worst possible 
reputation in regard to the opposite sex, it seems, to 
say the least, unfair that the burden of the blame for 
the subsequent events should have been assigned for all 
these centuries to Cleopatra. 

Before the end of that eventful night, Caesar seems 


104 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to have determined to excite the passionate love of that 
wild and irresponsible girl, whose personality and politi- 
cal importance made a doubly powerful appeal to him; 
and ere the light of dawn had entered the room his de- 
cison to restore her to the throne, and to place her 
brother in the far background, had been irrevocably 
made. As the sun rose he sent for King Ptolemy, who, 
on entering Ceesar’s presence, must have been dismayed 
to be confronted with his sister, whom he had driven 
into exile and against whom he had so recently been 
fightmg at Pelusium. It would appear that Cesar 
treated him with sternness, asking him how he had 
dared to go against the wishes of his father, who had 
entrusted their fulfilment to the Roman people, and de- 
manding that he should at once make his peace with 
Cleopatra. At this the young man lost his temper, and, 
rushing from the room, cried out to his friends and at- 
tendants who were waiting outside that he had been 
betrayed and that his cause was lost. Snatching the 
royal diadem from his head in his boyish rage and 
chagrin, he dashed it upon the ground, and, no doubt, | 
burst into tears. Thereupon an uproar arose, and the 
numerous Alexandrians who still remained within the 
Roman lines, at once gathering round their king, nearly 
succeeded in communicating their excitement to the 
royal troops in the city, and arousing them to a con- 
certed attack upon the Palace by land and sea. Cesar, 
however, hurried out and addressed the crowd, promis- 
ing to arrange matters to their satisfaction; and there- 
upon he called a meeting at which Ptolemy and Cleo- 
patra were both induced to attend, and he read out to 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 105 


them their father’s will wherein it was emphatically 
stated that they were to reign together. He reiterated 
his right, as representative of the Roman people, to ad- 
just the dispute; and at last he appears to have effected 
a reconciliation between the brother and sister. The un- 
fortunate Ptolemy must have realised that from that 
moment his ambitions and hopes were become dust and 
ashes, for he would now always remain under the 
scrutiny of his elder sister; and the liberty of action for 
which he and his ministers had plotted and schemed 
was for ever gone. According to Dion Cassius, he could 
already see plainly that there was an understanding be- 
tween Cesar and his sister; and Cleopatra’s manner 
doubtless betrayed to him her elation. She must have 
been intensely excited. A few hours previously she had 
been an exile, creeping back to her own city in im- 
minent danger of her life; now, not only was she Queen 
of Egypt once more, but she had won the esteem, and, 
so it seemed, the heart also of the Autocrat of the world, 
whose word was absolute law to the nations. One may 
almost picture her making faces at her brother as they 
sat opposite one another in Cesar’s improvised court 
of justice, and the unhappy boy’s distress must have 
been acute. 

Ceesar’s dominant idea now was to control the polli- 
tics of Egypt by means of a skilled play upon the heart 
of Cleopatra. He did not much care what happened to 
King Ptolemy or to his minister Potheinos, for they had 
forfeited their right to consideration by their attempt 
to set aside the wishes of Auletes, and by their disgust- 
ing behaviour to Pompey, who, though Cesar’s enemy, 


106 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


had yet been his mighty fellow-countryman; but it was 
his wish as soon as possible to placate the mob, and to 
endear the people of Alexandria to him, so that in three 
or four weeks’ time he might leave the country in un- 
disturbed quiet. Now the control of Cyprus was one 
of the most fervent aspirations of the city, and it seems 
to have occurred to Cesar that the presentation of the 
island to their royal house would be keenly appreciated 
by them, and would go a long way to appease their 
hostile excitement. When the Romans annexed Cyprus 
in B.c. 58, the Alexandrians had risen in revolt against 
Auletes largely because he had made no attempt to 
claim the country for himself. It had been more or 
less continuously an appendage of the Egyptian crown, 
and its possession was still the people’s dearest wish. 
Now, therefore, according to Dion, Cesar made a pres- 
ent of the island to Egypt in the names of the two 
younger members of the royal house, Prince Ptolemy 
and Princess Arsinoe; and though we have no records 
definitely to show that they ever assumed control of 
their new possession, or that it ceased, at any rate for a 
year or two, to be regarded as a part of the Roman 
province of Cilicia, it is certain that a few years later, in 
B.C. 42, 1t had become an Egyptian dominion and was 
administered by a viceroy of that country.* 

Having thus relieved the situation, Czesar turned his 
attention to other matters. While Auletes was in 
Rome, in B.c. 59, he had incurred enormous debts in his 
efforts to buy the support of the Roman Senate in re- 
establishing himself upon the Ptolemaic throne, and in 

t Page 252. 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 107 


this fact Cesar now saw a means both of showing his 
benevolence towards the Egyptians, and of making 
them pay for the upkeep of his small fleet and army at 
Alexandria. His claim on behalf of the creditors of 
Auletes he fixed at the very moderate sum of ten mil- 
lion denarii (£400,000), although it must have been 
realised by all that the original debts amounted to a 
much higher figure than this. At the same time he made 
no attempt to demand a war contribution from the 
Egyptians, although their original advocacy of the 
cause of Pompey would have justified him in doing so.? 
In this manner, and by the gift of Cyprus, he made a bid 
for the goodwill of the Alexandrians; but, unfortu- 
nately, his efforts in this direction were entirely frus- 
trated by the intrigues of Potheinos. There probably 
need not have been any difficulty in the raising of 
£400,000; but Potheinos chose to order the king’s 
golden dishes and the rich vessels in the temples to be 
melted down and converted into money. He furnished 
the king’s own table with wooden or earthenware plates 
and bowls, and caused the fact to be made known to the 
townspeople, in order that they should be shown the 
straits to which Cesar’s cupidity had reduced them. 
Meanwhile, he supplied the Roman soldiers with a very 
poor quality of corn, and told them, in reply to their 
complaints, that they ought to be grateful that they 
had received any at all, since they had no right to it. 
Nor did he hesitate to tell Ceesar that he ought not to 


7 It is usually stated that Cesar remained in Egypt chiefly because he was 
in need of money, as is suggested by Dion, xlii. 9 and 34; Oros, vi. 15, 29, and 
Plutarch, 48. But the small sum which he took from the Egyptians is against 
this theory. 


108 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


waste his time in Alexandria, or concern himself with 
the insignificant affairs of Egypt, when urgent business 
should be calling him back to Rome. His manner 
towards the Dictator was consistently rude and hostile, 
and there seems little doubt that he was plotting against 
him and was keeping in touch with Achillas. 
Hostilities of a more or less sporadic nature soon 
broke out, and it was not long before Cesar made his 
first hit at the enemy. Hearing that they were at- 
tempting to man their imprisoned ships, which still lay 
in the western portion of the Great Harbour, and know- 
ing that he was not strong enough either to hold or to 
utilise more than a few of them, he sent out a little force 
which succeeded in setting fire to and destroying the 
whole fleet, consisting of the fifty men-o’-war which, 
during the late hostilities, had been lent to Pompey, 
twenty-two guardships, and thirty-eight other craft, 
thus leaving in their possession only those vessels 
which lay in the Harbour of the Happy Return, beyond 
the Heptastadium. In this conflagration some of the 
buildings on the quay near the harbour appear to have 
been burnt, and it would seem that some portion of the 
famous Alexandrian library was destroyed; but the 
silence of contemporary writers upon this literary cata- 
strophe indicated that the loss was not great, and, to my 
mind, puts out of account the statement of later au- 
thors that the burning of the entire library occurred on 
that occasion. Czsar’s next move was to seize the 
Pharos Lighthouse and the eastern end of the island 
upon which it was built, thus securing the entrance to 
the Great Harbour, and making the passage of his ships 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 109 


to the open sea a manceuvre which could be employed 
at any moment. At the same time he threw up the 
strongest fortifications at all the vulnerable points in 
his land defences, and thereby rendered himself abso- 
lutely secure from direct assault. 

He was not much troubled by the situation. It is 
said that he was obliged more than once to keep awake 
all night in order to protect himself against assassina- 
tion; but such a contingency did not interfere to any 
great extent with his enjoyments of the life in the Alex- 
andrian Palace. From early youth he must have been 
accustomed to the thought of the assassin’s knife. His 
many love-affairs had made imminent each day the pos- 
sibility of sudden death, and his political and admin- 
istrative career also laid him open at all times to a 
murderous attack. The jealousy of the husbands whose 
wives he had stolen, the vengeance of the survivors of 
the massacres instigated by him, the resentment of the 
politicians whose ambitions he had thwarted, and the 
hatred of innumerable persons whom, in one way or 
another, he had offended, placed his life in continuous 
jeopardy. The machinations of Potheinos, therefore, 
left him undismayed, and he was able to prosecute what 
was, in plain language, the seduction of the Queen of 
Egypt, with an undistracted mind. 

Cleopatra appears to have been as strongly at- 
tracted to Cesar as he was to her; and although at the 
outset each realised the advantage of winning the 
other’s heart, and regulated their actions accordingly, 
_ there seems little doubt that, after a day or two of close 

companionship, a romantic attachment of a very genu- 


110 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ine nature had been formed between them. In the 
case of Cleopatra, no doubt, her love held all the sweet- 
ness of the first serious affair of her life, and on the part 
of Cesar there is apparent the passionate delight of a 
man past his prime in the vivacity and charm of a 
beautiful young girl. Though elderly, Czesar was what 
a romanticist would call an ideal lover. His keen, 
handsome face, his athletic and graceful figure, the fas- 
cination of his manners, and the wonder of the deeds 
which he had performed, might be calculated to win the 
heart of any woman; and to Cleopatra he must have 
made a special appeal by reason of his reputation for 
bravery and reliability on all occasions, and his present 
display of sang-froid and light-heartedness. 

Ceesar was, at this time, in holiday mood, and the 
life he led at the Palace was of the gayest description. 
He had cast from him the cares of state with an ease 
which came of frequent practice in the art of throwing 
off responsibilities; and when about October 25th he re- 
ceived news from Rome that he had been made Dictator 
for the whole of the coming year, 47, he was able to feel 
that there was no cause for anxiety. While the unfortu- 
nate young Ptolemy sulked in the background, Cesar 
and Cleopatra openly sought one another’s company 
and made merry together, it would seem, for a large part 
of every day. With such a man as Cesar, the result 
of this intimacy was inevitable; nor was it to be ex- 
pected that the happy-go-lucky and impetuous girl of 
but twenty years of age would act with much caution or 
propriety under the peculiar and exciting circumstances. 
It is possible that she had already gone through the form 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 111 


vf marriage with her co-regnant brother, as was the 
custom of the Egyptian Court; but it is highly unlikely 
that this was anything more than the emptiest formal- 
ity, and there is no reason to doubt that in actual fact 
she was, when she met Cesar, still unwedded. 

The gaiety of the life in the besieged Palace, and the 
progress of the romance which was there being en- 
acted, were rudely disturbed by two consecutive events 
which led at once to the outbreak of really serious hos- 
tilities. The little Princess Arsinoe, who, like all the 
women of this family, must have been endowed with 
great spirit and pluck, suddenly made her escape from 
the Roman lines, accompanied by her nutritius Gany- 
medes,? and joined the Egyptian forces under Achillas. 
The plot, organised no doubt by Ganymedes, had for 
its object the raising of the princess to the throne, while 
Cleopatra and her two brothers were imprisoned in the 
Lochias, and no sooner had they reached the Egyptian 
headquarters than they began freely to bribe all officers 
and officials of importance in order to accomplish their. 
purpose. Achillas, however, who had his own game to 
play, thought it wiser to remain loyal to his sovereign, 
and to attempt to rescue him from Ceesar’s clutches. 
It was not long before a quarrel arose between Gany- 
medes and Achillas, which ended in the prompt assas- 
sination of the latter, whose functions were at once 
assumed by his murderer, the war being thereupon 
prosecuted with renewed vigour. Previous to the death 


3 In ancient Egypt the princes and princesses often had male “nurses,” the 
title being an exceedingly honourable one. The Egyptian phrase sometimes 
reads “great nurse and nourisher,” and M. Lefebvre tells me that in a Fayoum 
inscription the tutor of Ptolemy Alexander is called rpopeds kal riOnvds ’ANeEd vdpov. 


112. LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of Achillas, Potheinos had been in secret communica: 
tion with him, apparently in regard to the possibility of 
murdering Cesar and effecting the escape of King 
Ptolemy and himself from the Palace ere Arsinoe and 
Ganymedes obtained control of affairs. Information of 
the plot was given to Cesar by his barber, “a busy, 
listening fellow, whose excessive timidity made him 
inquisitive into everything”’;4 and, at a feast held to 
celebrate the reconciliation between Ptolemy and Cleo- 
patra, Potheinos was arrested and immediately be- 
headed, a death which the poet Lucan considers to have 
been very much too good for him, since it was that by 
which he had caused the great Pompey to die. So far 
as one can now tell, Cesar was entirely justified in put- 
ting this wretched eunuch out of the way of further 
worldly mischief. He belonged to that class of court 
functionary which is met with throughout the history of 
the Orient, and which invariably calls forth the denun- 
ciation of the more moral West; but it is to be remem- 
bered in his favour that, so far as we know, he schemed 
as eagerly for the fortunes of his young sovereign, 
Ptolemy, as he did for his own advancement, and his 
treacherous manoeuvres were directed against the men- 
acing intrusion of a power which was relentlessly crush- 
ing the life out of the royal houses of the accessible 
world. His crime against fallen Pompey was no more 
dastardly than were many other of the recorded acts 
of the Court he served; and the fact that he, like his two 
fellow conspirators, Achillas and Theodotos, paid in 
blood and tears for the riches of the moment, goes far to 
4 Plutarch. 


" 





IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 113 


exonerate him, at this remote date, from further 
execration. 

The first act of the war which caused Cesar any 
misgivings was the pollution of his water supply by the 
enemy, and the consequent nervousness of his men. 
The royal area obtained its drinking water through 
subterranean channels communciating with the lake 
at the back of the city; and no sooner had Cesar real- 
ised that these channels might be tampered with than 
he attempted to cut his way southwards, probably along 
the broad street which led to the Gate of the Sun and 
to the Lake Harbour. Here, however, he met with a 
stubborn resistance, and the loss of life might have been 
very great had he persisted in his endeavour. Fortu- 
nately, however, the sinking of trial shafts within the 
besieged territory led to the discovery of an abun- 
dance of good water, the existence of which had not been 
suspected; and thus he was saved from the ignominy of 
being ousted from the city which he had entered in 
such solemn pomp, and of being forced to retire across 
the Mediterranean, his self-imposed task left uncom- 
pleted and his ambitions for the future of Cleopatra 
unfulfilled. 

Not long after this, the welcome news was brought 
to him that the Thirty-seventh Legion had crossed from 
Asia Minor with food supplies, arms, and siege-instru- 
ments, and was anchored off the Egyptian coast, being 
for the moment unable to reach him owing to contrary 
winds. Ceesar at once sailed out to meet them, with 
his entire fleet, the ships being manned only by their 

5 See pp. 33, 34. 


114. LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Rhodian crews, all the troops having been left to hold 
the land defences. Effecting a junction with these rein- 
forcements, he returned to the harbour, easily de- 
feated the Egyptian vessels which had collected to the 
north of the Island of Pharos, and sailed triumphantly 
back to his moorings below the Palace. 

So confident now was he in his strength that he next 
sailed round the island, and attacked the Egyptian fleet 
in its own harbour beyond the Heptastadium, inflict- 
ing heavy losses upon them. He then landed on the 
western end of Pharos, which was still held by the 
enemy, carried the forts by storm, and effected a 
junction with his own men who were stationed around 
the lighthouse at the eastern end. His plan was to ad- 
vance across the Heptastadium, and thus, by holding 
both the island and the mole, to obtain possession of the 
western Harbour of the Happy Return and ultimately 
to strike a wedge into the city upon that side. But here 
he suffered a dangerous reverse. While he was leading 
in person the attack upon the south or city end of the 
Heptastadium, and his men were crowding on to it 
from the island and from the vessels in the Great Har- 
bour, the Egyptians made a spirited attack upon its 
northern end, thus hemming the Romans in upon the 
narrow causeway, to the consternation of those who 
watched the battle from the Lochias Promontory. For- 
tunately vessels were at hand to take off the survivors 
of this sanguinary engagement, as the enemy drove them 
back from either end of the causeway; and presently 
they had all scrambled aboard and were rowing at full 
speed across the Great Harbour. Such numbers, how- 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 115 


ever, jumped on to the deck of the vessel into which 
Cesar had entered that it capsized, and we are then 
presented with the dramatic picture of the ruler of the 
world swimming for his life through the quiet waters 
of the harbour, holding aloft in one hand a bundle of 
important papers which he happened to be carry- 
ing at the moment of the catastrophe, dragging his 
scarlet military cloak along by his teeth, and at the 
same time constantly ducking his rather bald head 
under the water to avoid the missiles which were 
hurled at him by the victorious Egyptians, who must 
have been capering about upon the recaptured mole, 
all talking and shouting at once. He was, however, 
soon picked up by one of his ships; and thus he re- 
turned to the Palace, very cold and dripping wet, and 
having in the end lost the cloak which was the cherished 
mark of his rank. Four hundred legionaries and a 
number of seamen perished in this engagement, most of 
them being drowned; and now, perhaps for the first 
time, it began to appear to Cesar that the warfare 
which he was waging was not the amusing game he had 
thoughtit. For at least four months he had entertained 
himself in the Palace, spending his days in pottering 
around his perfectly secure defences and his nights in 
enjoying the company of Cleopatra. Up till now he 
must have been in constant receipt of news from Rome, 
where his affairs were being managed by Antony, his 
boisterous but fairly reliable lieutenant, and it is evi- 
dent that nothing had occurred there to necessitate 
his return. Far from being hemmed in within the 
Palace and obliged to fight for his life, as is generally 


i 


116 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


supposed to have been the case, it seems to me that his 
position at all times was as open as it was secure. He 
could have travelled across the Mediterranean at any 
moment; and, had he thought it desirable, he could 
have sailed over to Italy for a few weeks and returned 
to Alexandria without any great risk. His fleet had 
shown itself quite capable of defending him from dan- 
ger upon the high seas, as, for example, when he had 
sailed out to meet the Thirty-seventh Legion;° and, as 
on that occasion, his troops could have been left in se- 
curity in their fortified position. Supplies from Syria 
were plentiful, and the Rhodian sailors, after escorting 
him as far as Cyprus, could have returned to their 
duties at Alexandria in order to ensure the safe and 
continuous arrival of these stores and provisions. 

It is thus very apparent that he had no wish to 
abandon the enjoyments of his winter in the Egyptian 
capital, where he had become thoroughly absorbed 
both in the little queen of that country and in the prob- 
lems which were represented to him by her. He was an 
elderly man, and the weight of his years caused him to. 
feel a temporary distaste for the restless anxieties which 
awaited him in Rome. His ambitions in the Occident 
had been attained; and now, finding himself engaged in 
what, I would suggest, was an easily managed and not 
at all dangerous war, he was determined to carry the 
struggle through to its inevitable end, and to find in 
this quite interesting and occasionally exciting task an 
excuse for remaining by the side of the woman who, for 


6 Note also (p. 120) Cesar’s departure with his army from the besieged 
Palace. 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 117 


the time being, absorbed the attention of his wayward 
affections. Already he was beginning to realise that the 
subjection of Egypt to his will was a matter of very 
great political importance, as will be explained here- 
after; and he felt the keenest objection to abandoning 
the queen to her own devices, both on this account and 
by reason of the hold which she had obtained upon his 
heart. In after years he did not look back upon the 
fighting with an interest sufficient to induce him to 
record its history, as he had done that of other cam- 
paigns, but he caused an official account to be written 
by one of his comrades; and this author has been at 
pains to show that the struggle was severe in character. 
Such an interpretation of the war, however, though now 
unanimously accepted, is to be received with caution, 
and need not be taken more seriously than the state- 
ment that, in the first instance, Cesar’s prolonged stay 
at Alexandria was due to the Etesian winds, which 
made it difficult for his ships to leave the harbour. 
These annual winds from the north might have de- 
layed his return for a week or two; but it is obvious 
that he had no desire to set sail; and the author of 
De Bello Alexandrino was doubtless permitted to cover 
Cesar’s apparent negligence of important Roman affairs 
by thus attributing his lengthy absence to the strength 
of the enemy and to the inclemency of the Fates. 
Now, however, after the ignominous defeat upon 
the Heptastadium, Czesar appears to have become fully 
determined to punish the Alexandrians and to prose- 
cute the campaign with more energy. He seems soon 
to have received news that a large army was marching 


118 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


across the desert from Syria to his relief, under the joint 
leadership of Mithridates of Pergamum, a natural son 
of Mithridates the Great, the Jewish Antipater, father 
of Herod, and Iamblichus, son of Sampsiceramus, a 
famous Arab chieftain from Hemesa. With the ad- 
vent of these forces he knew that he would be able 
to crush all resistance and to impose his will upon 
Egypt; and he now, therefore, took a step which clearly 
shows his determination to handle affairs with sternness 
and ruthlessness, in such a manner that Cleopatra 
should speedily become sole ruler of the country, and 
thus should be in a position to lay all the might of her 
kingdoms in his hands. 

The Princess Arsinoe had failed to make herself 
Queen of Egypt in spite of the efforts of Ganymedes, 
and the royal army was still endeavouring to rescue 
King Ptolemy and to fight under his banner. Cesar, 
therefore, determined to hand the young man over to 
them, knowing, as the historian of the war admits, that 
there was little probability of such an action leading to a 
cessation of hostilities. His avowed object in taking 
this step was to give Ptolemy the opportunity of ar- 
ranging terms of peace for him; but he did not hesitate 
to record officially his opinion that, in the event of a 
continuation of the war, it would be far more honour- 
able for him to be fighting against a king than against 
‘a crowd of sweepings of the earth and renegades.” 
The truth of the matter, however, seems to me to be 
that Cesar wished to rid himself of the boy, who stood 
in the way of the accomplishment of his schemes in re- 
gard to the sole sovereignty of Cleopatra; and by hand- 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 119 


ing him over to the enemy at the moment when the 
news of the arrival of the army from Syria made 
the Egyptian downfall absolutely certain, he insured 
the young man’s inevitable death or degradation. The 
miserable Ptolemy must have realised this, for when 
Cesar instructed him to go over to his friends be- 
yond the Roman lines, he burst into tears and begged 
to be allowed to remain in the Palace. He knew quite 
well that the Egyptians had not a chance of victory— 
that when once he had taken up his residence with his 
own people their conqueror would treat him as an 
enemy and punish him accordingly. Cesar, however, 
on his part, was aware that if in the hour of Roman 
victory Ptolemy was still under his protection, it would 
be difficult not to carry out the terms of the will of 
Auletes by making him joint-sovereign with Cleopatra. 
The king’s tears and paradoxical protestations of devo- 
tion were therefore ignored; and forthwith he was 
pushed out of the Palace into the welcoming arms of the 
Alexandrians, the younger brother, whom Cesar had 
designed for the safely distant throne of Cyprus, being 
left in the custody of the Romans alone with Cleopatra. 

The relieving army from Syria soon arrived at the 
eastern frontier of Egypt, and, taking Pelusium by 
storm, gave battle to the king’s forces not far from the 
Canopic mouth of the Nile. The Egyptians were easily 
defeated, and the invaders marched along the eastern 
edge of the Delta towards Memphis (near the modern 
Cairo), just below which they crossed the Nile to the 
western bank. The young Ptolemy thereupon, expect- 
ing no mercy at Cesar’s hands, put himself boldly at the 


120 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


head of such troops as could be spared from the siege of 
the Palace at Alexandria, and marched across the Delta 
to measure swords with Mithridates and his allies. 
No sooner was he gone from the city than Cesar, 
leaving a small garrison in the Palace, sailed out of 
the harbour with as many men as he could crowd into 
the ships at his disposal, and moved off eastwards as 
though making for Canopus or Pelusium. Undercover of 
darkness, however, he turned in the opposite direction, 
and before dawn disembarked upon the deserted shore 
some miles to the west of Alexandria. He thus out- 
manceuvred the Egyptian fleet with ease, and, incident- 
ally, demonstrated that he had been throughout the 
siege perfectly free to come and go across the water as 
he chose. Marching along the western border of the 
desert, as his friends had marched along the eastern, he 
effected a junction with them at the apex of the Delta, 
not far north of Memphis, and immediately turned to 
attack the approaching Egyptian army. Ptolemy, on 
learning of their advance, fortified himself in a strong 
position at the foot of a tell, or mound, the Nile being 
upon one flank, a marsh upon the other, and a canal in 
front of him; but the allies, after a two-days’ battle, 
turned the position and gained a complete victory. 
The turning movement had been entrusted to a certain 
Carfulenus, who afterwards fell at Mutina fighting 
against Antony, and this officer managed to penetrate 
into the Egyptian camp. At his approach, Ptolemy 
appears to have jumped into one of the boats which 
lay moored upon the Nile; but the weight of the number 
of fugitives who followed his example sank the vessel, 


IN THE BESIEGED PALACE 12] 


and the young king was never seen alive again. It is 
said that his dead body was recognised afterwards by 
the golden corselet which he wore, and which, no doubt, 
had caused by its weight his rapid death. His tragic 
end, at the age of fifteen, relieved Caesar of the embar- 
rassing necessity either of pardoning him and making 
him joint-sovereign with Cleopatra, according to the 
terms of his father’s will, or of carrying him captive to 
Rome and putting him to death in the customary man- 
ner at the close of his triumph. The boy had foreseen 
the fate which would be chosen for him, when he had 
begged with tears to be allowed to remain in the Palace; 
and his sudden submersion in the muddy waters of the 
Nile must have terminated a life which of late had been 
intolerably overshadowed by the knowledge that his 
existence was an obstacle to Cesar’s relentless ambi- 
tions, and by the horror of the certainty of speedy 
- death. 

On March 27th, B.c. 47,7 Cesar, who had ridden on 
with his cavalry, entered Alexandria in triumph, its 
gates being now thrown open to him. The inhabitants 
dressed themselves in mourning garments, sending 
deputations to him to beg for his mercy and forgiveness, 
and bringing out to him the statues of their gods as a 
token of their entire submission. Princess Arsinoe and 
Ganymedes were handed over to him as prisoners; and 
in pomp he rode through the city to the Palace, where 
as a conquering hero and saviour he was received into 
the arms of Cleopatra. 


7 This was actually some time in January. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE BIRTH OF C#SARION AND CZSAR’S DEPARTURE 
FROM EGYPT 


Tue death of Ptolemy and the submission of Alex- 
andria brought the war to a definite close; and Cesar, 
once more in comfortable residence at the Palace, was 
enabled at last to carry out his plans for the regulation 
of Egyptian affairs, with the execution of which the 
campaign had so long interfered. Cleopatra’s little 
brother, the younger Ptolemy, was a boy of only eleven 
years of age, who does not seem to have shown such 
signs of marked intelligence or strong character as 
would cause him to be a nuisance either to Cesar or to 
his sister; and therefore it was arranged that he should 
be raised to the throne in place of his deceased brother, 
as nominal king and consort of Cleopatra. Cesar, it 
will be remembered, had given Cyprus to this youth 
and to his sister Arsinoe; but now, since the latter was a 
prisoner in disgrace and the former was not old enough 
to cause trouble in Egypt, the island kingdom was not 
pressed upon them. To the Alexandrians, whose cam- 
paign against him had entertained him so admirably 
while he had pursued his intrigue with Cleopatra, 


Ceesar showed no desire to be other than lenient, and he 
122 





CASAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 123 


preferred to regard the great havoc wrought in certain 
parts of their city as sufficient punishment for their mis- 
deeds. He granted to the Jews, however, equal rights 
with the Greeks, in consideration of their assistance in 
the late war, a step which must have been somewhat irri- 
tating to the majority of the townsfolk. He then con- 
stituted a regular Roman Army of Occupation, for the 
purpose of supporting Cleopatra and her little brother 
upon the throne,‘ and to keep order in Alexandria and 
throughout the country. This army consisted of the 
two legions which had been besieged with him in the 
Palace together with a third which presently arrived 
from Syria; and to the command of this force Cesar ap- 
pointed an able officer named Rufinus, who had risen 
by his personal merit from the ranks, being originally 
one of Czesar’s own freedmen. It is usually stated that 
in handing over the command to a man of this standing 
and not to a person belonging to the Senate, Caesar was 
showing his disdain for Egypt; but I am of opinion that 
the step was taken deliberately to retain the control of 
the country entirely in his own hands, Rufinus being, 
no doubt, absolutely Czsar’s man. We do not hear 
what became of the Gabinian troops who had fought 
against Ceesar, but it is probable that they were drafted 
to legions stationed in other parts of the world. 

It was now April,? and Cesar had been in Egypt for 
more than six months. He had originally intended to 
return to Rome, it would seem, in the previous Novem- 
ber; but his defiance by the Alexandrians, and later the 


t Just as the British Army of Occupation now in Egypt was originally 
stationed there to support the Khedive upon his throne and to keep order. 
2 Corresponding to the actual season of February. 


124 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


siege of the Palace, had given him a reasonable excuse 
for remaining with Cleopatra. Being by nature an 
opportunist, he had come during these months to inter- 
est himself keenly in Egyptian affairs, and, as we have 
seen, both they and his passion for the queen had fully 
occupied his attention. The close of the war, however, 
did not mean to him the termination of these interests, 
but rather the beginning of the opportunity for putting 
his schemes into execution. He must have been deeply 
impressed by the possibilities of expansive exploitation 
which Egypt offered. Cleopatra, no doubt, had told 
him much concerning the wonders of the land, wonders 
which she herself had never yet found occasion to 
verify. He had heard from her, and had received 
visible proof, of the wealth of the Nile Valley; and his 
march through the Delta must have revealed to him 
the richness of the country. No man could fail to be 
impressed by the spectacle of the miles upon miles of 
grain fields which are to be seen in Lower Egypt; and 
reports had doubtless reached him of the splendours of 
the upper reaches of the Nile, where a peaceful and 
law-abiding population found time both to reap three 
crops a year from the fertile earth, and to build huge 
temples for their gods and palaces for their nobles. The 
yearly tax upon corn alone in Egypt, which was paid in 
kind, must have amounted to some twenty millions of 
bushels, the figure at which it stood in the relgn of 
Augustus; and this fact, if no other, must have given 
Ceesar cause for much covetousness. 

He had probably heard, too, of the trade with India, 
which was already beginning to flourish, and which, a 





CHSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 125 


few years later, came to be of the utmost importance;+ 
and he had doubtless been told of the almost fabulous 
lands of Ethiopia, to which Egypt was the threshold, 
whence came the waters of the Nile. Egypt has al- 
ways been a land of speculation, attracting alike the 
interest of the financier and the enthusiasm of the con- 
queror; and Cesar’s imagination must have been 
stimulated by those ambitious schemes which have fired 
the brains of so many of her conquerors, just as that of 
the great Alexander had been inspired three centuries 
before. Feeling that his work in Gaul and the north- 
west was more or less completed, he may, perhaps, have 
considered the expediency of carrying Roman arms into 
the uttermost parts of Ethiopia; of crossing the Red 
Sea into Arabia; or of penetrating, like Alexander, to 
India and to the marvellous kingdoms of the Fast. 
Even so, eighteen hundred years later, Napoleon Bona- 
parte dreamed of marching his army through Egypt to 
the lands of Hindustan; and so also England, striving to 
hold her beloved India (as the prophetic Kinglake wrote 
in 1844), fixed her gaze upon the Nile Valley, until, as 
though by the passive force of her desire, it fell into 
her hands. For long the Greeks had thought that the 
Nile came from the east and rose in the hills of India; 
and even in the days with which we are now dealing, 
Egypt was regarded as the gateway of those lands. 
The trade-route from Alexandria to India was yearly 
growing in fame. The merchants journeyed up the Nile 
to the city of Koptos, and thence travelled by caravan 
across the desert to the seaport of Berenice, whence they 


3 Pliny, vi. 26. 


126 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


sailed with the trade wind to Muziris, on the west coast 
of India, near the modern Calicut and Mysore. It is 
possible that Czesar had succumbed to the fascination 
of distant conquest and exploration with which Egypt, 
by reason of her geographical situation, has inspired so 
many minds, and that he was allowing his thoughts to 
travel with the merchants along the great routes to the 
Kast. He must always have felt that the unconquered 
Parthians would cause a march across Asia to India to 
be a most difficult and hazardous undertaking, and 
there was some doubt whether he would be able to re- 
peat the exploits of Alexander the Great along that 
route; but here through Egypt lay a road to the Orient 
which might be followed without grave risk. The mer- 
chants were wont to leave Berenice, on the Egyptian 
coast, about the middle of July, when the Dog-star rose 
with the Sun, reaching the west coast of India about the 
middle of September;* and it would be strange indeed 
if Cesar had not given some consideration to the pos- 
sibility of carrying his army by that route to the lands 
which Alexander, of whose exploits he loved to read, 
had conquered. 

Abundant possibilities such as these must have 
filled his mind, and may have been the partial cause of 
his desire to stay yet a little while longer in this fascinat- 
ing country; but there was another and a more poignant 
reason which urged him to wait for a few weeks more in 
Egypt. Cleopatra was about to become a mother. 
Seven months had passed since those days in October 
when Cesar had applied himself so eagerly to the 


4Pliny, vi. 26. 


CHSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 127 


task of winning the love of the queen, and of pro- 
curing her surrender to his wishes; and now, in another 
few weeks, the child of their romance would be placed 
in hisarms. Old profligate though he was, it seems that 
he saw something in the present situation different from 
those in which he had found himself before. Cleopatra, 
by her brilliant wit, her good spirits, her peculiar charm 
of manner, her continuous courage, and her boundless 
optimism had managed to retain his love throughout 
these months of their close proximity; and an appeal 
had been made to the more tender side of his nature 
which could not be resisted. He wished to be near her 
at her confinement, and moreover (for in Ceesar’s actions 
there was generally a practical was well as a sentimental 
motive), it is probable that he entertained high hopes of 
receiving from Cleopatra an heir to his worldly wealth 
and position who should be in due course fully legiti- 
mised. His long intercourse with the queen had much 
altered his point of view; and I think there can be 
little doubt that his mind was eagerly feeling forward 
to new developments and revolutionary changes in 
his life. 

At Cleopatra’s wish he was now allowing himself to 
be recognised by the Egyptians as the divine consort of 
the queen, an impersonation of the god Jupiter-Amon 
upon earth. Some form of marriage had taken place 
between them, or, at any rate, the Egyptian people, if 
not the cynical Alexandrians, had been constrained to 
recognise their legal union. The approaching birth of 
the child had made it necessary for Cleopatra to dis- 
close her relationship with Cesar, and at the same time 


128 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to prove to her subjects that she, their queen, was not 
merely the mistress of an adventurous Roman. As 
soon, therefore, as her brother and formal husband, 
Ptolemy XIV had died, she had begun to circulate the 
belief that Julius Ceesar was the great god of Egypt 
himself come to earth, and that the child which was 
about to make its appearance was the offspring of a 
divine union. Upon the walls of the temples of Egypt, 
notably at Hermonthis, near Thebes, bas-reliefs were 
sculptured in which Cleopatra was represented in con- 
verse with the god Amon, who appears in human form, 
and in which the gods are shown assisting at the celestial 
birth of the child. A mythological fiction of a similar 
nature had been employed in ancient Egypt in reference 
'to the births of earlier sovereigns, those of Hatshepsut 
(B.c. 1500) and of Amenophis IIT (8.c. 1400) being two 
particular instances. In the known occasions of its use, 
the royal parentage of the child had been open to ques- 
tion, this being the reason why the story of the divine 
intercourse was introduced; and thus in the case of 
Cleopatra the myth had become familiar, by frequent 
use, to the priest-ridden minds of the Egyptians, and 
was not in any way startling or original. In the later 
years of the queen’s reign events were dated as from 
this supernatural occurrence, and there is preserved to 
us an epitaph inscribed in the “twentieth year of (or 
after) the union of Cleopatra with Amon.” 

Cesar was quite willing thus to be reckoned in 
Egypt as a divinity. His hero Alexander the Great, in 
like manner had been regarded as a deity, and had pro- 
claimed himself the son of Amon, causing himself 





CASAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 129 


to be portrayed with the ram’s horns of that god pro- 
jecting from the sides of his head. Though his belief 
in the gods was conspicuously absent, Cesar had always 
boasted of his divine descent, his family tracing their 
genealogy to Iulus, the son of Aineas, the son of 
Anchises and the goddess Venus; and there is every rea- 
son to suppose that Cleopatra had attempted to encour- 
age him to think of himself as being in very truth a god 
upon earth. She herself ruled Egypt by divine right, 
and deemed it no matter for doubt that she was the 
representative of the Sun-god here below, the mediator 
between man and his creator. The Egyptians, if not the 
Alexandrians, fell flat upon their faces when they saw 
her, and hailed her as god, in the manner in which 
their fathers had hailed the ancient Pharaohs. From 
earliest childhood she had been called a divinity, and 
she was named an immortal in the temples of Egypt as 
by undoubted right. Those who came into contact 
with her partook of the divine affluence, and her com- 
panions were holy in the sight of her Egyptian subjects. 
Ceesar, as her consort, thus became a god; and as soon 
as her connection with him was made public, he as- 
sumed ez officio the nature of a divine being. We shall 
see presently how, even in Rome, he came to regard 
himself as more than mortal, and how, setting aside in 
his own favour his disbelief in the immortals, before he 
died he had publicly called himself god upon earth. 
At the present period of his life, however, these start- 
ling assumptions were not clearly defined; and it is 
probable that he really did not know what to think 
about himself. Cleopatra had fed his mind with strange 


130 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


thoughts, and had so flattered his vanity, though prob- 
ably without intention, that if he could but acknowledge 
the existence of a better world, he was quite prepared 
to believe himself in some sort of manner come from it. 
She knew that she herself was supposed to be divine; 
she loved Cesar and had made him her equal; she 
was aware that he, too, was said to be descended from 
the gods; and thus, by a tacit assumption, it seems to 
me that she gradually forced upon him a sense of his 
divinity which, in the succeeding years, developed into 
a fixed belief. 

This appreciation of his divine nature, which we see 
growing in Cesar’s mind, carried with it, of course, a 
feeling of monarchical power, a desire to assume the 
prerogatives of kingship. Cleopatra seems now to have 
been naming him her consort, and in Egypt, as we have 
said, he must have been recognised as her legal hus- 
band. He was already, in a manner of speaking, King 
of Egypt; and the fact that he was not officially crowned 
as Pharaoh must have been due entirely to his own 
objection to such a proceeding. The Egyptians must 
now have been perfectly willing to offer to him the 
throne of the Ptolemies, just as they had accepted 
Archelaus, the High Priest of Komana, as consort of 
Berenice IV, Cleopatra’s half-sister;s and in these 
days, when their young queen was so soon to become a 
mother, there must have been a genuine and eager de- 
sire to regularise the situation by such a marriage with 
Cesar and his elevation to the throne. Nothing could 
be more happy politically than the queen’s marriage to 

5 Page 61 





CASAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT i131 


the greatest man in Rome, and we have already seen 
how there was some idea of a union with Cneeus Pompe- 
jus in the days when that man’s father was the ruler 
of the Republic. To the Egyptian mind the fact that 
Cesar was already a married man, with a wife living 
in Rome, was no real objection. She had borne him 
no son, and therefore might be divorced in favour of a 
more fruitful vine. Cleopatra herself must have been 
keenly desirous to share her Egyptian throne with 
Cesar, for no doubt she saw clearly enough that, since 
he was already autocrat and actual Dictator of Rome, 
it would not be long before they became sovereigns of 
the whole Roman world. If she could persuade him, 
like Archelaus of Komana, to accept the crown of the 
Pharaohs, there was good reason to suppose that he 
would try to induce Rome to offer him the sovereignty 
of his own country. The tendency towards monarchical 
rule in the Roman capital, thanks largely to Pompey, 
was already very apparent; and both Cesar and Cleo- 
patra must have realised that, if they played their 
game with skill, a throne awaited them in that city at 
no very distant date. 

Cleopatra was a keen patriot, or rather she was 
deeply concerned in the advancement of her own and 
her dynasty’s fortunes; and it must have been a matter 
of the utmost satisfaction to her to observe the direc- 
tion in which events were moving. The man whom she 
loved, and who loved her, might at any moment be- 
come actual sovereign of Rome and its dominions; and 
the child with which she was about to present hin, if it 
were a boy, would be the heir of the entire world. For 


132 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


years her dynasty had feared that Rome would crush 
them out of existence and absorb her kingdom into the 
Republic; but now there was a possibility that Egypt, 
and the lands to which the Nile Valley was the gate- 
way, would become the equal of Rome at the head of 
the great amalgamation of the nations of the earth. 
Egypt, it must be remembered, was still unconquered 
by Rome, and was, at the time, the most wealthy and 
important nation outside the Republic. All Alexan- 
drians and Egyptians believed themselves to be the 
foremost people in the world; and thus to Cleopatra 
the dream that Egypt might play the leading part in 
an Egypto-Roman empire was in no wise fantastic. 

Her policy, then, was obvious. She must attempt 
to retain Ceesar’s affection, and at the same time must 
nurse with care the growing aspirations towards mon- 
archy which were developing in his mind. She must 
bind him to her so that, when the time came, she might 
ascend the throne of the world by his side; and she must 
make apparent to him, and keep ever present to his 
imagination, the fact of her own puissance and the 
splendour of her royal status, so that there should be 
no doubt in Cesar’s mind that her flesh and blood, and 
hers alone, were fitted to blend with his in the founda- 
tion of that single royal line which was to rule the whole 
earth. 

Approaching motherhood, it would seem, had much 
sobered her wild nature, and the glory of her ambitions 
had raised her thoughts to a level from which she must 
have contemplated with disdain her early struggles 
with the drowned Ptolemy, the decapitated Potheinos, 





CHSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 133 


the murdered Achillas, and the outlawed Theodotos. 
She, Cleopatra, was the daughter of the Sun, the sister 
of the Moon, and the kinswoman of the heavenly beings; 
she was mated to the descendant of Venus and the 
Olympian gods, and the unborn offspring of their union 
would be in very truth King of Earth and Heaven. 
Historians, both ancient and modern, are agreed 
that Cleopatra was a woman of exceptional mental 
power. Her character, so often wayward in expres- 
sion, was as dominant as her personality was strong; 
and she must have found no difficulty in making her 
appeal to the soaring ambitions of the great Roman. 
When occasion demanded she carried herself with 
dignity befitting the descendant of an ancient line of 
kings, and even in her escapades the royalty of her per- 
son was at all times apparent. The impression which 
she has left upon the world is that of a woman who was 
always significant of the splendour of monarchy; and 
her influence upon Cesar in this regard is not to be 
overlooked. A man such as he could not live for six 
months in close contact with a queen without feeling to 
some extent the glamour of royalty. She represented 
monarchy in its most absolute form, and in Egypt her 
word was law. The very tone of her royal mode of life 
must have constituted new matter for Cesar’s mind to 
ruminate upon; and that trait in his character which 
led him to abhor the thought of subordination to any 
liying man, must have caused him to watch the actions 
of an autocratic queen with frank admiration and rest- 
less envy. Tales of the kings of Alexandria and 
stories of the ancient Pharaohs without doubt were 


134 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


narrated, and without doubt took some place in Cesar’s 
brain. Cleopatra’s point of view, that of the most 
royal of the world’s royal houses, must, by its very un- 
familiarity, have impressed itself upon his thoughts. 
Thus, little by little, under the influence of the 
Egyptian queen and in the power of his own sleepless 
ambitions, Cesar began to give serious thought to the 
possibilities of creating a world-empire over which he 
should rule as king, founding a royal line which should 
sit upon the supreme earthly throne for ages to come. 
Obviously it must have occurred to him that kings must 
rule by right of royal blood, and that his own blood, 
though noble and though said to be of divine origin, 
was not such as would give his descendants unques- 
tionable command over the loyalty of their subjects. 
A man who is the descendant of many kings has a right 
to royalty which the son of a conqueror, however 
honourable his origin, does not possess. So thought 
Napoleon when he married the Austrian princess, 
founding a royal house in his country by using the 
royal blood of another land for the purpose. Looking 
around him with this thought in view, Cesar could not 
well have chosen anybody but Cleopatra as the found- 
ress of his line. There was no Roman royal house ex- 
tant, and therefore a Greek was the best, if not the only 
possible alternative; and the Ptolemaic Kings of Egypt 
were pure Macedonians, deriving their descent, by 
popular belief, if not in actual fact, from the royal 
house of Ceesar’s hero, Alexander the Great. He may 
well, then, have contemplated with enthusiasm the 
thought of the future monarchs of Rome sitting by in- 


CHSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 135 


herited right upon the ancient throne of Macedonian 
Egypt; and Cleopatra on her part was no doubt in- 
spired by the idea of future Pharaohs, blood of her 
blood, and bone of her bone, ruling Rome by hereditary 
authority. 

Cleopatra of necessity had to find a husband. Al- 
ready she had postponed her marriage beyond the age 
at which such an event should take place; and any 
union with her co-regnant brother could but be of a 
formal nature. Czesar now had come into her life, 
capturing her youthful affections and causing himself 
to be the parent of her child; and it 1s but natural to 
suppose that she would endeavour by every means in 
her power to make him her lifelong consort, thus add- 
ing to her own royal stock the worthiest blood of Rome. 
There can be no doubt that, whether or not she might 
succeed in making Ceesar himself Pharaoh of Egypt, she 
intended to hand on the Egyptian throne to her child 
and his, adding to the name of Ptolemy that of the 
family of the Cesars. Thus it may be said, though my 
assumption at first seems startling, that the Roman Em- 
pire to a large extent owes its existence to the Egyptian 
queen, for the monarchy was in many respects the child 
of the union of Cesar and Cleopatra. 

These as yet undefined ambitions and hopes found 
a very real and material expression in Ceesar’s eagerness 
to know whether the expected babe would be a girl, or 
a son and heir; and it seems likely that his determina- 
tion to remain in Egypt was largely due to his unwill- 
ingness to depart before that question was answered. 
This, and the paternal responsibility which perhaps for 


136 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the first time in his sordid life he had ever felt, led him 
to postpone his return to Rome. He seems to have en- 
tertained feelings of the greatest tenderness towards the 
queen, whom he was beginning to regard as his wife; 
and he was, no doubt, anxious to be near her during the 
ordeal through which the young and delicately built 
girl had, for the first time, to pass. It has been the 
custom for historians to attribute Cesar’s prolonged 
residence in Egypt, after the termination of the war 
and the settlement of Egyptian affairs, to the sensuous 
allurements of Cleopatra, who is supposed to have held 
him captive by the arts of love and by the voluptuous 
attractions of her person; but here a natural fact of life 
has been overlooked. A woman who is about to render 
mankind the great service of her sex, has neither the 
ability nor the desire to arouse the feverish emotions of 
her lover. Her condition calls forth from him the more 
gentle aspects of his affection. His responsibility is 
expressed in consideration, in interest, in sympathy, 
and in a kind of gratitude; but it is palpably absurd to 
suppose that a mere passion, such as that by which 
Cesar is thought to have been animated, could at this 
time have influenced his actions. If love of any kind 
held him in Egypt, it was the love of a husband for his 
wife, the devotion of a man who was about to become 
a parent to the woman who would presently pay toll to 
nature In response to his incitement. Actually, as we 
have seen, there was something more than love to keep 
him in Egypt; there was ambition, headlong aspiration, 
the intoxication of a conqueror turning his mind to new 
conquests, and the supreme interest of a would-be king 


CHISAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 137 


constructing a throne which should be occupied not 
only by himself, but by the descendants of his own 
flesh and blood for all time. 6 
While waiting for the desired event, Ceesar could 
not remain inactive in the palace at Alexandria. He 
desired to ascertain for himself the resources of the land 
which was to be considered as his wife’s dowry; and he 
therefore determined to conduct a peaceful expedition 
up the Nile with this object in view. The royal dahabi- 
ych or house-boat was therefore made ready for himself 
and Cleopatra, whose condition might be expected to 
benefit by the idle and yet interesting life upon the 
river; and orders were given both to his own legionaries 
and to a considerable number of Cleopatra’s troops to 
prepare themselves for embarkation upon a fleet of 
four hundred Nile vessels. The number of ships sug- 
gests that there were several thousand soldiers em- 
ployed in the expedition; and it appears to have been 
Ceesar’s intention to penetrate far into the Sidan.7 
6Tt has generally been stated that Cesar left Egypt before the birth of 
Cesarion, an opinion which, in view of the fact that Appian says he remained 
nine months in Egypt, has always seemed to me improbable; for it is surely 
more than a coincidence that he delayed his departure from Egypt until the 
very month in which Cleopatra’s and his child was to be expected to arrive, he 
having met her in the previous October. Plutarch’s statement may be inter- 
preted as meaning that Cesar departed to Syria after the birth of his son. I 
think that Cicero’s remark, in a letter dated in June, B.c. 47, that there was a 
serious hindrance to Ceesar’s departure from Alexandria, refers to the event 
for which he was waiting. Those who suggest that Cesar did not remain in 
Egypt so long are obliged to deny that the authors are correct in stating that 
he went up the Nile; and they have to disregard the positive statement of Ap- 
pian that the Dictator’s visit lasted nine months. Moreover, the date of the 


celebration of Ceesarion’s seventeenth birthday (as recorded on p. 388) is a 
further indication that he was born no later than the beginning of July. 

7 It has generally been thought that this was simply a pleasure cruise up the 
Nile, but the number of ships (given by Appian) indicates that many troops 
were employed, and the troops are referred to by Suetonius also. 


138 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The royal vessel, or thalamegos, as it was called by the 
Greeks, was of immense size, and was propelled by 
many banks of oars.’ It contained colonnaded courts, 
banqueting saloons, sitting rooms, bedrooms, shrines 
dedicated to Venus and to Dionysos, and a grotto or 
“winter garden.” The wood employed was cedar and 
cypress, and the decorations were executed in paint 
and gold-leaf. The furniture was Greek, with the ex- 
ception of that in one dining hall, which was decorated 
in the Egyptian style.? The rest of the fleet consisted, 
no doubt, of galleys and ordinary native transports 
and store-ships. 

From the city of Alexandria the fleet passed into 
the nearest branch of the Nile, and so travelled south- 
wards to Memphis, where Cleopatra perhaps obtained 
her first sight of the great Pyramids and the Sphinx. 
Thebes, the ancient capital, at that period much fallen 
into decay, was probably reached in about three weeks’ 
time; and Cesar must have been duly impressed by 
the splendid temples and monuments upon both banks 
of the Nile. Possibly it was at his suggestion that Cleo- 
patra caused the great obelisk of one of her distant 
predecessors to be moved from the temple of Luxor at 
Thebes and to be transported down to Alexandria, 
where it was erected not far from the Forum,?*° an in- 
scription recording its re-erection being engraved at the 


8§ The thalamegos described by Athenzus was not that used on this occasion, 


but the description will serve to give an idea of its luxury. 

9 Athenzeus, v. 37. The number of banks of oars and the measurements, 
as given by him, are probably exaggerated. 

t0 Tt was presented to the British Government, and now stands on the 
Thames Embankment in London. It is known as Cleopatra’s Needle. 


CASAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 139 


base. The journey was continued probably as far as 
Aswan and the First Cataract, which may have been 
reached some four or five weeks after the departure 
from Alexandria; and it would seem that Cesar here 
turned his face to the north once more. Suetonius 
states that he was anxious to proceed further up the 
Nile, but that his troops were restive and inclined to 
be mutinous, a fact which is not surprising, since the 
labour of dragging the vessels up the cataract would 
have been immense, and the hot south winds which 
often blow in the spring would have added considerably 
to the difficulties. The temperature at this time of 
year may rise suddenly from the pleasant degree of an 
Egyptian winter to that of the heights of intolerable 
summer, and so remain for four or five days. 

Be this as it may, Cesar turned about, having 
satisfied himself as to the wealth and fertility of the 
country, and no doubt, having obtained as much in- 
formation as possible from the natives in regard to the 
trade-routes which led from the Nile to Berenice and 
India, or to Meroe, Napata, and the Kingdom of 
Ethiopia. The expedition arrived at Alexandria prob- 
ably some nine or ten weeks after its departure from 
that city—that is to say, at the end of the month of 
June; and it would seem that in the first week of July 
Cleopatra’s confinement took place. 

The child proved to be a boy; and the delighted 
father thus found himself the parent of a son and heir 
who was at once accepted by the Egyptians as the legiti- 
mate child of the union of their queen with the god 
Amon, who had appeared in the form of Cesar. He 


140 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


was named Ceesar, or more familiarly Cesarion, a Greek 
diminutive of the same word; but officially, of course, 
he was known also as Ptolemy, and ultimately was the 
sixteenth and last of that name. A bilingual inscription 
now preserved at Turin refers to him as “Ptolemy, who 
is also called Cesar,” this being often seen in Egyptian 
inscriptions in the words Ptolemys zed nef Kysares. 
“Ptolemy called Ceesar.”’ 

The Dictator waited no longer in Egypt. For the 
last few months he had put Roman politics from his 
thoughts and had not even troubled to write any 
despatches to the home government.': But now he had 
to create the world-monarchy of which his winter with 
Cleopatra had led him to dream; and first there were 
campaigns to be fought on the borders of the Mediter- 
ranean; there was Parthia to be subdued, and finally 
India was to be invaded and conquered. Then, when 
all the known world had become dependent upon him, 
and only Egypt and her tributaries were still outside 
Roman dominion, he would, by one bold stroke, an- 
nounce his marriage to the queen of that country, in- 
corporate her lands and her vast wealth with those of 
Rome, and declare himself sole monarch of the earth. 
It was a splendid ambition, worthy of a great man; 
and, as we shall presently see, there can be very little 
question that these glorious dreams would have been 
converted into actual realities had not his enemies mur- 
dered him on the eve of their realisation. Modern 
historians are unanimous in declaring that Cesar had 
wasted his time in Egypt, and had devoted to a love 


™t Cicero, A. xi. 17, 13 


CHSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT 141 


intrigue the weeks and months which ought to have 
been spent in regulating the affairs of the world. Actu- 
ally, however, these nine months, far from being wasted, 
were spent in the very creation of the Roman empire. 
True, Cesar’s schemes were frustrated by the knives 
of his assassins; but, as will be seen in the sequel, his 
plans were carried on by Cleopatra with the assistance 
of Antony, and finally were put mto execution by 
Octavian. 

As Cesar sailed out of the Great Harbour of Alex- 
andria, he must have turned his keen grey eyes with 
_ peculiar interest upon the splendid buildings of the 
palace, which towered in front of the city, upon the 
Lochias Promontory; and that quiet, whimsical expres- 
sion must have played around his close-shut lips as he 
thought of the change that had been wrought in his 
mental attitude by the months spent amidst its royal 
luxuries. Enthusiasm for the work which lay before 
him must have burnt like a fire within him; but im- 
pressed upon his brain there must have been the picture 
of a darkened room in which the happy-go-lucky little 
Queen of Egypt, now so subdued and so gentle, lay 
clasping to her breast the new-born Cesar, the sole 
heir to the kingdom of the whole world. 


CHAPTER VIII 
CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR IN ROME 


C#SAR’S movements during the year after his 
departure from Egypt do not, for the purpose of this 
narrative, require to be recorded in detail. From 
Alexandria, which he may have left at about the middle 
of the first week in July, he sailed in a fast-going galley 
across the 500 miles of open sea to Antioch, arriving at 
that city a few days before the middle of that month.' 
There he spent a day or two in regulating the affairs 
of the country, and presently sailed on to Ephesus, 
some 600 miles from Antioch, which he probably 
reached at the end of the third week of July. At Anti- 
och he heard that one of his generals, Domitius Cal- 
vinus, had been defeated by Pharnakes, the son of 
Mithridates the Great, and had been driven out of 
Pontus, and it seems that he at once sent three legions 
to the aid of the beaten troops with orders to await in 
north-western Galatia or Cappadocia for his coming. — 
After a day or two at Ephesus, Ceesar travelled with 
extreme rapidity to the rendezvous, taking with him 
only a thousand cavalry; and arriving at Zela, 500 miles 


* He could have performed the journey in five days or less with a favourable 
wind. 
142 


CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR IN ROME 143 


from Ephesus, on or before August 2nd, at once de- 
feated the rebels. It had been his custom in Gaul to 
travel by himself at the rate of a hundred miles a day, 
and even with a heavily laden army he covered over 
forty miles a day, as for example in his march from 
Rome to Spain, which he accomplished in twenty-seven 
days; and he may thus have joined his main army and 
commenced his preparations for the battle of Zela as 
early as the last days of July. The crushing defeat — 
which he inflicted on the enemy so shortly after taking 
over the command was thus a feat of which he might 
justly be proud, and it so tickled his vanity that in 
writing to a friend of his in Rome, named Amantius, he 
described the campaign in the three famous words, Venz, 
vidi, vict, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” which so 
clearly indicate that he was beginning to regard himself 
as a sort of swift-footed, irresistible demigod. 

Thence he sailed at last for Italy, and reached Rome 
at the end of September, almost exactly a year after his 
arrival in Egypt. He remained in Rome not more than 
two and a half months, and about the middle of De- 
cember he set out for North Africa, where Cato, Scipio, 
and other fugitive friends of Pompey had established a 
provisional government with the assistance of Juba, 
King of Numidia, and were gathering their forces. Ar- 
riving at Hadrumetum on December 28th, he at once 
_ began the war, which soon ended in the entire defeat 
and extermination of the enemy at Thapsus on April 
6th. Of the famous Pompeian leaders, Faustus Sulla, 
Lucius Africanus and Lucius Julius Cesar were put 
to death; and Lucius Manlius Torquatus, Marcus 


144 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Petrius, Scipio and Cato committed suicide; while, 
according to Plutarch, some fifty thousand men were 
slain in the rout. Arriving once more in Rome on July 
25th, B.c. 46, Ceesar at once began to prepare for his 
triumph which was to take place in the following month; 
and it would seem that he had already sent messen- 
gers to Cleopatra, who had spent a quiet year of ma- 
ternal interests in Alexandria, to tell her to come with 
their baby to Rome. 

According to Dion, the queen arrived shortly after 
the Triumph, but several modern writers? are of opin- 
ion that she reached the capital in time for that event. 
I am disposed to think that she made the journey to 
Italy in company with the Egyptian prisoners who 
were to. be displayed in the procession, Princess Arsinoe, 
the eunuch Ganymedes, ? and others, whom Cesar prob- 
ably sent for in the late spring of this year soon after the 
battle of Thapsus. Cleopatra could not have been 
averse to witnessing the Triumph, for she must have 
regarded the late warfare in Alexandria not so much as 
a Roman campaign against the Egyptians as an Egypto- 
Roman suppression of an Alexandrian insurrection. 
The serious part of the campaign could be interpreted 
as having been waged by Ceesar on behalf of herself and 
her brother, Ptolemy XIV, against the rebels Achillas 
and Ganymedes, and later against this same Ptolemy 
who had gone over to the enemy; and the victory might 
thus be celebrated both by her and by her Roman 
champion. It would therefore be fitting that she 


2 Notably Dr. Mahaffy. 
3 Judging by the remark of the commentator on Lucan, Pharsalia, x. 521. 


bees 


CLEOPATRA AND CESAR IN ROME 145 


should be a spectator of the degradation of Arsinoe and 
Ganymedes; and her presence in Rome at this time 
would obviously be desirable to her as indicating that 
she and her country had suffered no defeat. Czesar, on 
his part, must have desired her presence that she might 
witness the dramatic demonstration of his power and 
popularity. He had just been made Dictator for the 
third time, and this appointment no doubt led him to 
feel the security of his position and the imminence of 
that rise to monarchical power in which Cleopatra and 
their son were to play so essential a part. He was 
beginning to regard himself as above criticism; and his 
two great victories, in Pontus and Numidia, following 
upon his nine months of regal life in Egypt, had some- 
what turned his head, so that he no longer considered 
the advisability of delaying his future consort’s intro- 
duction to the people of Rome. He had yet much to 
accomplish before he could ascend with her the throne 
of the world, but there can be no question whatsoever 
that he now desired Cleopatra to begin to make herself 
known in the capital; and, this being so, it seems to me 
to be highly probable that he would wish her to refute, 
by her presence as a witness of his Triumph, any sug- 
gestion that she herself was to be included in that con- 
_ quered Egypt‘ about which he was so continuously 
boasting. 

The Queen of Egypt’s arrival in Rome must have 
caused something of a sensation. Cartloads of baggage, 
and numerous agitated eunuchs and slaves doubtless 


4A coin inscribed with the words Zgypto capta was struck after his return 
to Rome (Goltzius: de re Numm). 


146 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


heralded her approach and followed in her train. Her 
little brother, Ptolemy XV, now eleven or twelve years 
of age, whom she had probably feared to leave alone in 
Alexandria lest he should follow the family tradition 
and declare himself sole monarch, had been forced to 
accompany her, and now added considerably to the 
commotion of her arrival. The one-year-old heir of the 
Ceesars and of the Ptolemies, surrounded by guards and 
fussing nurses, must, however, have been the cynosure 
of all eyes; for every Roman guessed its parentage, 
knowing as they did the peculiarities of their Dictator. 
Cleopatra and her suite were accommodated in Cesar’s 
transtiberint hortt, where a charming house stood amidst 
beautiful gardens on the right bank of the Tiber, near 
the site of the modern Villa Panfili; and it is to be pre- 
sumed that his legal wife Calpurnia was left as mistress 
of another establishment within the city. 

Ceesar’s attitude towards Cleopatra at this time is 
not easily defined. It is not to be presumed that he was 
still very deeply in love with her; for natures such as his 
are totally incapable of continued devotion. During 
his residence in North Africa in the winter or early 
spring, he had been much attracted by Eunoe, the wife 
of Bogud, King of Mauretania, and had consoled him- 
self for the temporary loss of Cleopatra by making her 
his mistress. Yet the Queen of Egypt still exercised a 
very considerable influence over him; and when she 
came to Rome it may be supposed that in his trans- 
pontine villa they resumed with some satisfaction the 
intimate life which they had enjoyed in the Alexan- 
drian Palace. The first infatuation was over, however, 


CLEOPATRA AND CHSAR IN ROME 147 


and both Cesar and Cleopatra must have felt that the 
basis of their relationship was now a business agree- 
ment designed for their mutual benefit. In all but 
name they were married, and it was the fixed intention 
of both that their marriage should presently be recog- 
nised in Rome as it already had been in Egypt. Cesar, 
I suppose, took keen pleasure in the company of the 
witty, vivacious, and regal girl; and he was extremely 
happy to see her lodged in his villa, whither he could 
repair at any time of the day or night to enjoy her bril- 
liant and refreshing society. Their baby son, too, was a 
source of interest and enjoyment to him. He was now 
fourteen months old, and his likeness to Cesar, so pro- 
nounced in after years, must already have been ap- 
parent. Suetonius states that the boy came to resemble 
his father very closely, and both in looks and in man- 
ners, notably in his walk, showed very clearly his origin. 
These resemblances, already able to be observed, must 
have delighted Czesar, who took such careful pride in 
his own appearance and personality; and they must have 
formed a bond between himself and Cleopatra as nearly 
permanent as anything could be in his progressive and 
impatient nature. The queen, on her part, probably 
still took extreme pleasure in the companionship of the 
great Dictator, who represented an ideal both of man- 
hood and of social charm. She must have loved the 
fertility of his mind, the autocratic power of his 
will, and the energy of his personality; and though pre- 
mature age and ill-health were beginning to diminish 
his aptitude for the réle of ardent swain, she found in 
him, no doubt, a lovable friend and husband, and one 


148 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


with whom the intimacies of daily comradeship were 
a cause of genuine happiness. They were as well 
suited to each other as two ambitious characters 
could be; and, moreover, they were irrevocably bound 
to each other by the memory of past passion not 
yet altogether in abeyance, by the sympathy of 
mutual understanding, by the identity of their worldly 
interests, and by the responsibilities of correlative 
parentage. 

The arrival of Cleopatra in Rome of course caused a 
scandal, to which Cesar showed his usual nonchalant 
indifference. People were sorry for the Dictator’s legal 
wife, Calpurnia, who, since her marriage in B.c. 59, had 
been left so much alone by her husband; and they were 
shocked by the open manner in which the members of 
the Cesarian party paid court to the queen. I find no 
evidence to justify the modern beliefs that Roman 
society was at the time annoyed at the introduction of 
an eastern lady into its midst; for everybody must have 
known that Cleopatra had not one drop of Egyptian 
blood in her veins, and must have realised that she was 
a pure Macedonian Greek, ruling over a city which was 
the centre of Greek culture and civilisation. But at the 
same time there is evidence to show that the Romans 
did not like her. Cicero wrote that he detested her;? 
and Dion says that the people pitied Princess Arsinoe, 


5’ Houssaye, Aspasie, Cleopatre, Theodora, p. 91, for example, says that 
society was shocked at a Roman being in love with an Egyptian; and Sergeant, 
Cleopatra of Egypt, writes: ‘It was as an Egyptian that Cleopatra offended 
the Romans.”’ 

° Horace’s Ode was written after the engineered talk of the “eastern peril” 
had done its work—i.e., after Actium. 

7 Ad Atticum, xv. 15. 


CLEOPATRA AND CHSAR IN ROME 149 


her sister, whose degradation was a consequence of 
Cleopatra’s success with Cesar. On the whole, how- 
ever, her advent did not cause as much stir as might 
have been expected, for she seems to have acted with 
tactful moderation in the capital, and to have avoided 
all ostentation. 

The triumph which Cesar celebrated in August for 
the amusement of Rome and for his own enjoyment was 
fourfold in character, and lasted for four days. Upon 
the first day Ceesar passed through the streets of Rome 
in the réle of conqueror of Gaul, and when darkness had 
fallen ascended the Capitol by torchlight, forty ele- 
phants carrying numerous torch-bearers to right and 
left of his chariot. The unfortunate Vercingetorix, who 
had been held prisoner for six miserable years, was 
executed at the conclusion of this impressive parade— 
an act of cold-blooded cruelty to an honourable foe (who 
had voluntarily surrendered to Cesar to save his coun- 
trymen from further punishment) which, at the time, 
may have been excused on the ground that such execu- 
tions were customary at the end of a Triumph. Upon 
the second day the conquest of the Dictator’s Egyp- 
tian enemies was celebrated, and the Princess Arsinoe 
was led through the streets in chains, together, it would 
seem, with Ganymedes, the latter perhaps being exe- 
cuted at the close of the performance, and the former 
being spared as a sort of compliment to Cleopatra’s 
royal house. In this procession images of Achillas and 
Potheinos were carried along, and were greeted by the 
populace with pleasant jeers; while a statue represent- 
ing the famous old Nilus, and a model of Pharos, the 


150 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


wonder of the world, reminded the spectators of the 
importance of the country now under Roman protec- 
tion. African animals strange to Rome, such as the 
giraffe, were led along in the procession, and other 
wonders from Egypt and Ethiopia were displayed for 
the delight of the populace. On the third day the con- 
quest of Pontus was demonstrated, and a large tablet 
with the arrogant words Veni, Vidi, Vict painted upon 
it was carried before the conqueror. Finally, on the 
fourth day, the victories in North Africa were cele- 
brated. In this last procession Cesar caused some of- 
fence by exhibiting captured Roman arms; for the 
campaign had been fought against Romans of the 
Pompeian party, a fact which at first he had attempted 
to disguise by stating that the Triumph was cele- 
brated over King Juba of Numidia, who had sided with 
the enemy. Still graver offence was caused, however, 
when it was seen that vulgar caricatures of Cato and 
other of Ceesar’s personal enemies were exhibited in the 
procession; and the populace must have questioned 
whether such a jest at the expense of honourable 
Romans whose bodies were hardly yet cold im their 
graves was in perfect taste. It would seem indeed that 
Cesar’s judgment in such matters had become some- 
what warped during this last year of military and ad- 
ministrative success, and that he had begun to despise. 
those who were opposed to him as though they could be 
but misguided fools. In this attitude one sees, per- 
haps, something of that same quality which led him 
blandly to accept in Egypt a sort of divinity as by per- 
sonal right, and which persuaded him to aim always 


CLEOPATRA AND C/ASSAR IN ROME 151 


towards absolutism; for a man is in no wise normal who 
considers himself a being meet for worship and his 
enemy an object fit only for derision. 

There seems, in fact, little doubt that Cesar was not 
now in a normal condition of mind. For some years he 
had been subject to epileptic seizures, and now the dis- 
tressing malady was growing more pronounced and the 
seizures were of more frequent occurrence. At the 
battle of Thapsus he is said to have been taken ill in 
this manner; and on other occasions he was attacked 
while in discharge of his duties. Such a physical condi- 
tion may be accountable for much of his growing eccen- 
tricity, and, particularly, one may attribute to it his 
increasing faith in his semi-divine powers. Lombroso 
goes so far as to say that epilepsy is almost an essential 
factor in the personality of one who believes himself to 
be a Son of God or Messenger of the Deity. Akhnaton, 
the great religious reformer of Ancient Egypt, suffered 
from epilepsy; the Prophet Mohammed, to put it 
bluntly, had fits; and many other religious reformers 
suffered in like manner. One cannot tell what hal- 
lucinations and strange manifestations were experi- 
enced by Cesar under the influence of this malady; but 
one may be sure that to Cleopatra they were clear in- 
dications of his close relationship to the gods, and that 
in explanation she did not fail to remind him both of 
his divine descent and her own inherited divinity, in 
which, as her consort, he participated. 

Towards the end of September, Ceesar caused a sen- 
sation in Rome by an act which shows clearly enough 
his attitude in this regard. He consecrated a magnifi- 


152 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


cent temple in honour of Venus Genetrix, his divine an-~ 
cestress; and there, in the splendour of its marble 
sanctuary, he placed a statue of Cleopatra, which had 
been executed during the previous weeks by the famous 
Roman sculptor, Archesilaus.* The significance of this 
act has been overlooked by modern historians. In 
placing in this shrine of Venus, at the time of its inaug- 
uration, a figure of the Queen of Egypt, who in her own 
country was the representative of Isis-Aphrodite upon 
earth,? Caesar was demonstrating the divinity of Cleo- 
patra, and was telling the people, as it were in everlast- 
ing phrases of stone, that the royal girl who now 
honoured his villa on the banks of the Tiber was no less 
than a manifestation of Venus herself. It will presently 
be seen how, in after years, Cleopatra went to meet 
Antony decked in the character of Venus, and how she 
was then, and on other occasions, hailed by the crowd as 
the goddess come down to earth; and we shall see how 
her mausoleum actually formed part of the temple of 
that goddess. Both at this date and in later times she 
was identified indiscriminately with Isis, with Venus- 
Hathor, and with Venus-Aphrodite; and even after her 
death the tradition so far survived that one of her famous 
pearl earrings was cut into two parts, and, in this form, 
ultimately ornamented the ears of the statue of Venus 
in the Pantheon at Rome. Coins dating from this 
period have been found upon which Cleopatra is repre- 
sented as Aphrodite, carrymg in her arms the baby 


8 J think this fact may be regarded as an argument in favour of the opinion 
that Cleopatra had been in Rome already several weeks. 


9 Venus and Isis were identified in Rome also. 





oe SS a ‘ 


Beers: : 
British Museum Photograph by Macbeth 


CLEOPATRA 





.* in 


asd +7 wee 





CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR IN ROME 153 


Cesarion, who is supposed to be Eros. Cesar was 
always boasting about the connection of his house with 
this goddess, and now the placing of this statue of Cleo- 
patra in his new temple is, I think, to be interpreted as 
signifying that he wished the Roman people to regard 
the queen as a “young goddess,” which was the title 
given to her by the Greeks and Egyptians in her own 
country. 

It is not altogether certain that Cesar himself was 
actually beginning to regard Cleopatra in this light, 
though the increasing frequency of his epileptic attacks, 
and his consequent hallucinations, may have now made 
such an attitude possible even in the case of so hardened 
a sceptic as was the Dictator in former years. It 
seems more reasonable to suppose that he was at this 
time attempting to appeal to the imagination of the 
people in anticipation of the great cowp which he was 
about to execute; and that, with this object in view, he 
allowed himself to be carried along by a kind of en- 
thusiastic self-deception. He applied no serious analysis 
to his opinions in this regard; but, by means of a 
thoughtless vanity, he seems to have given rein to an un- 
defined conviction, very suitable to his great purpose, 
that he himself was more than human, and that Cleo- 
patra was not altogether a woman of mortal flesh and 
blood. Even so Alexander the Great had partially de- 
luded himself when, on the one hand, he named himself 
the son of Jupiter-Ammon, and, on the other, was care- 
ful, once when wounded, to pomt out that ordinary 
mortal blood flowed from his veins. And so, too, 
Napoleon Bonaparte, during his invasion of Egypt, 


154 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


declared that he was the Prophet of God, and, in 
after years, was willing to describe to a friend, as it~ 
were in jest, his vision of himself as the founder of a 
new faith. 

The inauguration of Ceesar’s new temple, which was, 
one may say, the shrine of Cleopatra, was accompanied 
by amazing festivities, and the excitable population of 
this great city seemed, so to speak, to go mad with 
enthusiasm. Great gladiatorial shows were organised, 
and a miniature sea-fight upon an artificial lake was en- 
acted for the public entertainment. The majority of 
the mob was ready enough to accept without comment 
the exalted position of the statue of Cleopatra. At this 
time in Rome they were very partial to new and foreign 
deities, celestial or in the flesh; and actually the worship 
of the Egyptian goddess Isis, with whom Cleopatra, as 
Venus, was so closely connected, had taken firm hold of 
their imagination. For the last few years the religion 
of Isis had been extremely popular with the lower 
classes in Rome; and when, in B.c. 58, a law which had 
been made forbidding foreign temples to be located 
within a certain area of the city, necessitated the de- 
struction of a temple of Isis, not one man could be 
found who would touch the sacred building, and at last 
the Consul, Lucius Paullus, was obliged to tuck up his 
toga and set to work upon the demolition of the edifice 
with his own hands. Thus, this inaugural ceremony, so 
lavishly organised by Cesar, was a marked success; 
and in spite of the indignation of Cicero, the statue of 
Cleopatra took its permanent place, with popular con- 
sent, in the sanctuary of Venus. No expense was 





CLEOPATRA AND CHSAR IN ROME 155 


spared on this or on any other occasion to please the 
people; and at one time twenty-two thousand persons 
partook of a sumptuous meal at Cesar’s expense. Such 
a courting of the people was, indeed, necessary at this 
time; for although the Dictator was at the moment 
practically omnipotent, and though there was talk 
of securing him in his office for a term of ten years, 
his party had not that solidity which was to be desired 
of it. Antony, the right-hand man of the Cesarians, 
was, at the time, in some disgrace owing to a quarrel 
with his master; and there were rumours that he wished 
to revenge himself by assassinating Cesar. It was al- 
ready becoming clear that the Pompeian party, in spite 
of Pharsalia and Thapsus, was not yet dead, and still 
waited to receive its death-blow. Some of the Dicta- 
tor’s actions had given considerable offence, and there 
were certain people in Rome who made use of every 
opportunity to denounce him, and to offer their praise 
to the memory of his enemy Cato, whose tragic death 
after the battle of Thapsus, and the vilification of whose 
memory in the recent Triumph, had caused such a 
painful impression. Cicero wrote an encomium upon 
this unfortunate man, to which Cesar, in self-defence, 
replied by publishing his Anti-Cato, which was marked 
by a tone of bitter and even venomous animosity. All 
manner of unpleasant remarks were bemg made in 
better-class circles in regard to Cleopatra; and when 
the Dictator publicly admitted the parentage of 
their child, and authorised him to bear the name of 
Cesar, it began to be whispered that his legal marriage 
to the queen was imminent. 


156 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The mixed population of Rome delighted in political 
strife, and though Cesar’s position seemed unassailable, 
there were always large numbers of persons ready to 
make sporadic attacks upon it. There was at this time 
constant rioting in the Forum, and an almost continu- 
ous restlessness was to be observed in the streets and 
public places. In the theatres topical allusions were re- 
ceived with frantic applause;*° and even in the Senate 
disturbances were not infrequent. The people had 
always to be humoured, and Cesar was obliged at all 
times to play to the gallery. Fortunately for him he 
possessed in the highest degree the art of self-adver- 
tisement;'t and his charm of manner, together with his 
striking and handsome appearance, made the desired 
appeal to the popular fancy. His relationship to Cleo- 
patra stood, on the whole, in his favour amongst the 
lower classes, who had hailed him with coarse delight as 
the terror of the women of Gaul; and the fact that she 
was a foreigner mattered not in the least to the hetero- 
geneous population of Rome. They, themselves, were 
largely a composition of the nations of the earth; and 
that Ceesar’s mistress, and probable future wife, was a 
Greek, was to them in no wise a matter for comment. 
In any theatre in Rome at that date one might sit 
amidst an audience of foreigners to hear a drama 
given (at Cesar’s expense, by the way) in languages | 
such as Greek, Phoenician, Hebrew, Syrian, or Span- 
ish. To them Cleopatra must have appeared as a 
wonderful woman, closely related to the gods, come 


*° As, for example, when the actor Diphilus alluded to Pompey in the 
words ‘‘ Nostra miseria tu es—Magnus” (Cicero, Ad. Att. ii. 19). 
™tT use the words of Oman. 





CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR IN ROME 157 


from a famous city across the waters to enjoy the 
society of their own half-godlike Dictator; and they 
were quite prepared to accept her as a pleasant and 
romantic adjunct to the political situation. 

Among the many reforms which Cesar now intro- 
duced there was one which was the direct outcome of 
his visit to Egypt. For some time the irregularities of 
the calendar had been causing much inconvenience, and 
the Dictator, very probably at the Queen of Egypt’s 
suggestion, now decided to invite some of Cleopatra’s 
court astronomers to Rome in order that they might 
establish a new system based upon the Egyptian 
calendar of Eudoxus. Sosigenes was at that time the 
most celebrated astronomer in Alexandria, and it was 
to him, perhaps at Cleopatra’s advice, that Cesar now 
turned. After very careful study it was decided that 
the present year B.c. 46, should be extended to fifteen 
months, or 445 days, in order that the nominal date 
might be brought round to correspond with the actual 
season. The so-called Julian calendar, which was thus 
established, is that upon which our present system is 
based; and it is not without interest to recollect that 
but for Cleopatra some entirely different set of months 
would now be used throughout the world. 

Ceesar’s mind at this time was full of his plans for 
the conquest of the East. In B.c. 65 Pompey had 
brought to Rome many details regarding the overland 
route to the Orient. This route started from the Port 
of Phasis on the Black Sea, ascended the river of that 
name to its source in Iberia, passed over to the valley 
of the river Cyrus (Kur), and so came to the coast of 


158 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the Caspian Sea. Crossing the water, the route thence 
led along the river Oxus, which at that time flowed into 
the Caspian, to its source, and thus through Cashmir 
into India. There must then have been some talk of 
carrying the eagles along this highway to the Orient; 
and while Cesar was in Egypt it seems probable, as we 
have seen, that he had studied the question of leading 
Roman arms thither by the great Egyptian trade route. 
Though this latter road to the wonderful Orient, how- 
ever, must have seemed to him, after consideration, to 
be very suitable as a channel for the despatch of rein- 
forcements, he appears to have favoured the land 
route across Asia for his original invasion. This ap- 
proach to the East was blocked by the Parthians, and 
Cesar now announced his intention of conducting a 
campaign against these people. There is no evidence 
to show that he desired to follow Alexander’s steps be- 
yond Parthia into India, but I am of opinion that such 
was his intention. In view of the facts that the exploits 
of Alexander the Great had been studied by him, that 
he publicly declared his wish to rival them, that he 
must have heard from Pompey of the overland route to 
India with which the Romans had become acquainted 
during the war against Mithridates, that his love of 
distant conquest and exploration was inordinate, that 
he had spent some months in studying conditions in 
Egypt—a country which was in those days full of talk 
of India and of the new trade with the Orient, that after 
leaving Egypt he began at once to prepare fora campaign 
against the one nation which obstructed the overland 
route to the East, that no other part of the known 





Tes 


EPICA IE erie So poninytints, cciutsediiats 


CLEOPATRA AND CHISAR IN ROME 159 


world, save poverty-stricken Germania, remained to 
be brought by conquest under Roman sway, that India 
offered possibilities of untold wealth, and that Cleopatra 
herself ultimately made an attempt to reach those far 
countries—the inference seems to me to be clear that 
Ceesar’s designs upon Parthia were only preliminary to 
a contemplated invasion of the East. The riches of 
those distant lands were already the talk of the age, and 
within the lifetime of young men of this period, streams 
of Indian merchandise, comprising diamonds, precious 
stones, silks, spices and scents, began to pour into Rome 
and were sold each year, according to the somewhat ex- 
aggerated account of Pliny, for some forty million 
pounds sterling.t? Could Ceesar, the world’s greatest 
spendthrift, the world’s most eager plunderer, have re- 
sisted the temptation of making a bid for the loot which 
lay behind Parthia? Does the fact that he said nothing 
of such an intention preclude the possibility that 
thoughts of this kind now filled his mind, and formed a 
topic of conversation between him and the adventurous 
Cleopatra, the ruler of the gateway of the Orient, who 
herself sent Ceesar’s son to India, as we shall see in due 
course? Napoleon, when he invaded Egypt in 1798, 
said very little about his contemplated attack upon 
India; but it was none the less dominant in his mind for 
that. Egypt and Parthia in conjunction formed the 
basis of any attempt to capture the Orient; Egypt with 
its route across the seas, and Parthia with its highroad 


12 Pliny (vi. 26) says that some £400,000 in money was conveyed to India 
each year in exchange for goods which were sold for one hundred times that 
amount. 


160 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEGPATRA 


overland. Are we really to suppose that Cesar did 
waste his time in Egypt, or was he then studying the 
same problem which now directed his attention to 
Parthia? By means of his partnership with Cleopatra 
he had secured one of the routes to India; and the mer- 
chants of Alexandria, if not his own great imagination, 
must have made clear to him the value of his possession 
in that regard; for ever since the discovery of the over- 
sea route to the East that value has been recognised. 
The Venetian Sanuto in later years told his compatriots 
of the effect on India which would follow from the con- 
quest of the Nile Valley; the Comte Daru said that the 
possession of Egypt meant the opening up of India; 
Leibnitz told Louis XIV of France that an invasion of 
Egypt would result in the capture of the Indian high- 
road; the Duc de Choiseul made a similar declaration to 
Louis XV; Napoleon stated in his Mémoirs that his ob- 
ject in attacking Egypt was to lead an army of 60,000 
men to India; and at the present day England holds the 
Nile Valley as being the gateway of her distant posses- 
sions. Onthe other side of the picture we saw not so long 
ago, the attempts of Russia to establish her power in 
Northern Persia and Afghanistan, where once the Par- 
thians of old held sway, in order to be ready for that day 
when English power in India should decline. Was Cesar, 
then, straining every nerve only for the possession of 
the two gateways of the Orient, or did his gaze penetrate 
through those gateways to the vast wealth of the 
kingdoms beyond? I am disposed to see him walk- 
ing with Cleopatra in the gardens of the villa by the 
Tiber, just as Napoleon paced the parks of Passeriano, 


= 
ae A 


CLEOPATRA AND CASSAR IN ROME 161 


“frequently betraying by his exclamations the gigantic 
thoughts of his unlimited ambition,” as Lacroix tells us 
of the French conqueror. 

Such dreams, however, were rudely interrupted by 
the news that the Pompeian party had gathered its 
forces in Spain; and Cesar was obliged to turn his at- 
tention to that part of the world. In the winter of B.c. 
46, therefore, he set out for the south-west, impatient 
at the delay which the new campaign necessitated in 
his great schemes. He was in no mood to brook any 
opposition in Rome, and before leaving the capital he 
arranged that he should be made consul without a col- 
league for the ensuing year, B.c. 45, as well as Dictator, 
thus giving himself absolutely autocratic power. On 
his way to Spain he sent a despatch to Rome, appointed 
eight prefectt urbi with full powers to act in his name, 
_ thus establishing a form of cabinet government which 
should entirely over-ride the wishes of the Senate and 
of the people; and in this manner he secured the politi- 
cal situation to his own advantage. Naturally, there 
was a very great outcry against this high-handed ac- 
tion; but Cesesar was far too deeply occupied by his vast 
schemes, and far too annoyed by this Spanish inter- 
ruption of his course towards the great goal of his ambi- 
tions, to pay much attention to the outraged feelings of 
his political opponents. 

The enemy in Spain were led by the two sons of the 
great Pompey, but at the battle of Munda, fought on 
March 17, B.c. 45, they were entirely defeated with a 
loss of some thirty thousand men. The elder of the two 
leaders, Cnzeus Pompeius, who was said to have once 


162 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


been a suitor for Cleopatra’s heart, was killed shortly 
after the battle, but the younger, Sextus, escaped. 
Cesar then returned to Rome, being met outside the 
capital by Antony, with whom he was reconciled; and 
in the early summer he celebrated his Triumph. In this 
he offended a number of persons, owing to the fact that 
his victory had been won over his fellow-countrymen, 
whose defeat, therefore, ought not to have been the 
cause of more than a silent satisfaction. After Phar- 
salia, Cesar had celebrated no Triumph, since Romans 
had there fought Romans; and, indeed, as Plutarch 
says, “he had seemed rather to be ashamed of the action 
than to expect honour from it.”” But now he had come 
to feel that he himself was Rome, and that his enemies 
were not simply opposed to his party, but were in arms 
against the State. 

Knowing now that the Pompeians were at last 
crushed, Cxsar decided to attempt to appease any ill- 
feeling directed against himself by the friends of the 
fallen party; and for this purpose he caused the statues 
of Pompey the Great, which had been removed from 
their pedestals, to be replaced; and furthermore, he 
pardoned, and even gave office to, several leaders of the 
Pompeian party, notably to Brutus and Cassius, who 
afterwards were ranked amongst his murderers. He 
then settled down in Rome to prepare for his campaign 
in the East, and, in the meantime, to put into execution 
the many administrative reforms which were maturing 
in his restless brain. It appears that he lived for the 
most part of this time in the house of which his wife 
Calpurnia was mistress; but there can be little doubt 


CLEOPATRA AND CASAR IN ROME 163 





that he was a constant visitor at his transpontine villa, 
and that he spent all his spare hours there in the 
society of Cleopatra, who remained in Rome until his 
death, 





CHAPTER IX 


THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EGYFTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 


Tur people of Rome now began to heap honours 
upon Ceesar, and the government which he had estab- 
lished did not fail to justify its existence by voting him 
to a position of irrevocable power. He was made con- 
sul for ten years, and there was talk of decreeing him 
Dictator for life. The Senate became simply an instru- 
ment for the execution of his commands; and so little 
did the members concern themselves with the framing 
of new laws at home, or with the details of foreign 
administration, that Cicero was able to complain that 
in his official capacity he had received the thanks of 
Oriental potentates whose names he had never seen 
before, for their elevation to thrones of kingdoms of 
which he had never heard. Cvzsar’s interests were 
world-wide, and the Government in Rome earried out 
his wishes in the manner in which an ignorant Board 
of Directors of a company with foreign interests follows 
the advice of its travelling manager. He had lived for 
such long periods in foreign countries, his campaigns 
had carried him over so much of the known world’s 
surface, that Rome appeared to him to be nothing 
more than the headquarters of his administration, and 


not a very convenient centre at that. His intimacy 
164 


PS nee 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY _ 165 


with Cleopatra, moreover, had widened his outlook, 
and had very materially assisted him to become an 
arbiter of universal interests. Distant cities, such as 
Alexandria, were no longer to him the capitals of foreign 
lands, but were the seats of local governments within 
his own dominions; and the throne towards which he 
was climbing was set at an elevation from which the 


nations of the whole earth could be observed. 


In accepting as his own business the concerns of so 
many lands, he was assuming responsibilities the weight 
of which no man could bear; yet his dislike of receiving 
advice, and his uncontrolled vanity, led him to resent 
all interference, nor would he admit that the strain was 
too great for his weakened physique. Intimate friends 
of the Dictator, such as Balbus and Oppius, observed 
that he was daily growing more irritable, more self- 
opinionated; and the least suggestion of a decentralisa- 
tion of his powers caused him increasing annoyance. 
He wished always to hold the threads of the entire 
world’s concerns in his own hands. Now he was dis- 
cussing the future of North African Carthage and of 
Grecian Corinth, to which places he desired to send 
out Roman colonists; now he was regulating the affairs 
of Syria and Asia Minor; and now he was absorbed in 
the agrarian problems of Italy. There were times 
when the weight of universal affairs pressed so heavily 
upon him that he would exclaim that he had lived long 
enough; and in such moods, when his friends warned 
him of the possibility of his assassination, he would 
reply that death was not such a terrible matter, nor a 
disaster which could come to him more than once. 


166 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The frequency of his epileptic seizures was a cause of 
constant distress to him, and his gaunt, almost haggard 
appearance, must have indicated to his friends that the 
strain was becoming unbearable. Yet ever his ambi- 
tions held him to his self-imposed task; and always his 
piercing eyes were set upon that goal of all his schemes, 
the monarchy of the earth. 

People were now beginning to discuss openly the 
subject of his elevation to the throne. It was freely 
stated that he proposed to make himself king and 
Cleopatra queen, and, further, that he intended to 
transfer the seat of his government to Alexandria, or 
some other eastern city. The site of Rome was not 
ideal. It was too far from the sea ever to be a first- 
rate centre of commerce; nor had it any natural sources 
of wealth in the neighbourhood. The streets, which 
were narrow and crookedly built, were liable to be 
flooded at certain seasons by the swift-flowing Tiber. : 
Pestilence and sickness were rife amongst the congested 
quarters of the city; and in the middle ages, as Momm- 
sen has pointed out, ‘‘one German army after another 
melted away under its walls and left it mysteriously 
victorious.” After the battle of Actium, Augustus 
wished to change the capital to some other quarter of 
the globe, as, for example, to Byzantium; and it is very 
possibie that the idea originated with Cesar. At the 
period with which we are now dealing, Rome was far 
less magnificent than it became a few years later, and 
it must have compared unfavourably with Alexandria 
and other cities. Its streets ascended and descended, 

t Horace, Od. 1, 2. 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY _ 167 


twisted this way and that, in an amazing manner; and 
so narrow were they that Ceesar was obliged to pass a 
law prohibiting waggons from being driven along them 
in the daytime, all porterage being performed by men 
or beasts of burden. The great public buildings and 
palaces of the rich rose from amidst the encroaching 
jumble of small houses like exotic plants hemmed in by 
a mass of overgrown weeds; and Cesar must often have 
given envious thought to Alexandria with its great 
Street of Canopus and its royal area. 

Those who study the lives of Cleopatra and Ceesar 
in conjunction cannot fail to ask themselves how far 
the queen influenced the Dictator’s thoughts at this 
time. During these last years of his life—the years 
which mark his greatness and give him his unique place 
in history—Cleopatra was living in the closest intimacy 
with him; and, so far as we know, there was not another 
man or woman in the world who had such ample oppor- 
tunities for playing an influential part in his career. 
If Cleopatra was interested, as we know she was, in the 
welfare of her country and her royal house, or in the 
career of herself and Ceesar, or in the destiny of their 
son, it is palpably impossible to suppose that she did 
not discuss matters of statecraft with the man who was, 
in all but name, her husband. At a future date, Cleo- 
patra was strong enough to play one of the big political 
roles in history, dealing with kingdoms and armies as 
the ordinary woman deals with a house and servants; 
and in the light of the knowledge of her character as it 
is unfolded to us in the years after the Dictator’s death, 
it is not reasonable to suppose that in Rome she kept 


168 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


aloof from all his schemes and plans, deeming herself 
capable of holding the attention of the master of the 
world’s activities by the entertainments of the boudoir 
and the arts of the bedchamber. Her individuality 
does not dominate the last years of the Roman Repub- 
lic, merely because of the profligacy of her life with 
Antony and the tragedy of their death, but because her 
personality was so irresistible that it influenced in no 
small degree the affairs of the world. I am of opinion 
that Cleopatra’s name would have been stamped upon 
the history of this period, even though the events 
which culminated at Actium had never occurred. 
The romantic tragedy of her connection with Antony 
has captured the popular taste, and has diverted the 
attention of historians from the facts of her earlier 
years. There is a tendency completely to overlook the 
influence which she exercised in the politics of Rome 
during the last years of Ceesar’s life.2 The eyes of 
historians are concentrated upon the Alexandrian 
drama, and the tale of Cleopatra’s life in the Dictator’s 
villa is overlooked. Yet who will be so bold as to state 
that a queen, whose fortunes were linked by Cesar 
with his own at the height of his power, left no mark 
upon the events of that time? When Cleopatra came 
to Rome her outlook upon life must have been in 
striking contrast to that of the Romans. The Republic 
was still the accepted form of government, and as yet 
there was no definite movement towards monarchism. 


? Ferrero writes: “The Queen of Egypt plays a strange and significant 
part in the tragedy of the Roman Republic. ... She desired to become 
Cesar’s wife, and she hoped to awaken in him the passion for kingship.” 
But this is a passing comment. 





Vatican Photograph by Anderson 
JULIUS CAESAR 


> 





THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY © 169 


The hereditary emperors of the future were hardly 
dreamed of, and the kings of the far past were nigh 
forgotten. Now, although it may be supposed that 
Cleopatra, by contact with the world, had adopted a 
moderately rational view of her status, yet there can 
be no doubt that the sense of her royal and divine 
personality was far from dormant in her. Her educa- 
tion and upbringing, as I have already said, and now 
the adulation of Ceesar, must have influenced her mind, 
so that the knowledge of her royalty was at all times 
almost her predominant characteristic; and it would 
be strange indeed if the Dictator’s thoughts had been 
proof against the insinuating influence of this atmos- 
phere in which he chose to spend a great portion of his 
time. Did Rome herself supply Cesar’s stimulus, 
Rome which had not known monarchy for four hundred 
and fifty years? But admitting that Rome was ripe 
for monarchy, and that circumstances to some extent 
forced Cesar towards that form of government, can 
we declare that the Dictator would, of his own accord, 
have embraced sovereignty and even divinity so rapidly 
had his consort not been a queen and a goddess? 
During the last months of his life—namely, from his 
return to Rome in the early summer after the Spanish 
campaign to his assassination in the following March— 
Ceesar vigorously pressed forward his schemes in regard 
to the monarchy. Originally, it would seem, he had 
intended to complete his eastern conquests before 
making any attempt to obtain the throne; but now the 
long delay in his preparations for the Parthian cam- 
paign had produced a feeling of impatience which could 


170 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


no longer be controlled. Moreover, his attention had 
been called to an old prophecy which stated that the 
Parthians would not be conquered until a King of 
Rome made war upon them; and Cesar was sufficiently 
acute, if not sufficiently superstitious, to be influenced 
to an appreciable extent by such a declaration. Little 
by little, therefore, he assumed the prerogatives of 
kingship, daily adding to the royal character of his 
appearance and daily assuming more autocratic and 
monarchical powers. 

It was not long before he caused himself to be given 
the hereditary title of Imperator, a word which meant 
at that time “Commander-in-chief,” and had no royal 
significance, though the fact that it was made hereditary 
gave it a new significance. It is to be observed that the 
persons who framed the decree must have realised that 
the son to whom the title would descend would probably 
be that baby Ceesar who now ruled the nurseries of the 
villa beside the Tiber; for there can be little doubt that 
the Dictator’s legitimate marriage to Cleopatra at the 
first oppertune moment was confidently expected by 
his supporters; and we are thus presented with the 
novel spectacle of enthusiastic Roman statesmen offer- 
ing the hereditary office of Imperator to the future 
King of Egypt. There can surely be no clearer indi- 
cation than this that the people of Rome took no 
exception to Cleopatra’s foreign blood,? nor thought 
of her in any way as an Oriental. The attitude of the 


3 No Englishman is troubled by the knowledge that the mother of his king 
is a Dane, and no Spaniard is worried by the thought that his sovereign has 
married an Englishwoman. The kinship between Roman and Greek was as 
close as these. 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 171 


majority of modern historians suggests that they 
picture the Dictator at this time as living with some 
sort of African woman whom he had brought back with 
him from Egypt; but I must repeat that in actual fact 
the Romans regarded Cleopatra as a royal Greek lady 
whose capital city of Alexandria was the rival of the 
Eternal City in wealth, magnificence, and culture, 
bearing to Rome, to some extent, the relationship which 
New York bears to London. It was rumoured at this 
time that a law was about to be introduced by one of 
the tribunes of the people which would enable Cesar, 
if necessary, to have two wives—Calpurnia and Cleo- 
patra—and that the new wife need not be a Roman. 
The people could have felt no misgivings at the thought 
of Cleopatra’s son being Cesar’s heir; for already they 
knew well enough that Cesar was to be King of Rome, 
and by his marriage with Cleopatra they realised that 
he was adding to Rome’s dominions without force of 
arms the one great kingdom of the civilised world 
which was still independent, and was securing for his 
heirs upon the Roman throne the honourable appendage 
of the oldest crown in existence, and the vast fortune 
which went with it. In later years, when Cleopatra as 
the consort of Antony had become a public enemy, 
there was much talk of an East-Mediterranean peril, 
and the queen came to represent Oriental splendour as 
opposed to Occidental simplicity; but at the time with 
which we are now dealing this attitude was entirely 
undeveloped, and Cleopatra was regarded as the most 
suitable mother for that son of Cesar who should one 
day inherit his honours and his titles. 


172, LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


At about this date the baby actually became un. 
crowned King of Egypt, for Cleopatra’s young brother, 
Ptolemy XV, mysteriously passes from the records of 
history, and is heard of no more. Whether Cleopatra 
and Ceesar caused him to be murdered as standing in 
the way of their ambitions, or whether he died a natural 
death, will now never be known. He comes into the 
story of these eventful days like a shadow, and like a 
shadow he disappears; and all that we know concerning 
his end is derived from Josephus,‘ who states that he 
was poisoned by his sister. Such an accusation, how- 
ever, is only to be expected, and would certainly have 
been made had the boy died of a sudden illness. It is 
therefore not just to Cleopatra to burden her memory 
with the crime; and all that one may now say is that, 
while the death of the unfortunate young king may 
be attributed to Cleopatra without improbability, 
there is really no reason to suppose that she had any- 
thing to do with it. 

Cesar now caused a statue of himself to be erected 
in the Capitol as the eighth royal figure there, the 
previous seven being those of the old kings of Rome. 
Soon he began to appear in public clad in the embroid- 
ered dress of the ancient monarchs of Alba; and he 


4 Porphyry, writing several generations later, states that he died by Cleo- 
patra’s treachery; but he is evidently simply quoting Josephus. Porphyry 
says that he died in the eighth year of Cleopatra’s reign and the fourth year of 
his own reign. This is confirmed by an inscription which I observed in Prof, 
Petrie’s collection and published in Receuil de Travaux. This records an event 
which took place “‘In the ninth year of the reign of Cleopatra ... [a lacuna 
- . » Cesarion.”” The lacuna probably reads “‘ . .. and in the first (or 
second) year of the reign of . . .” This inscription shows that in the queen’s 
ninth year Cesarion was already her consort, which confirms Porphyry’s 
statement. 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY § 173 


caused his head to appear in true monarchical manner 
upon the Roman coins. A throne of gold was provided 
for him to sit upon in his official capacity in the Senate, 
and on his tribunal; and in his hand he now carried a 
sceptre of ivory, while upon his head was a chaplet of 
gold in the form of a laurel-wreath. A consecrated 
chariot, like the sacred chariot of the kings of Egypt’ 
was provided for his conveyance at public ceremonies 
and a kind of royal bodyguard of senators and nobles 
was offered to him. He was given the right, moreover, 
of being buried inside the city walls, just as Alexander 
the Great had been laid to rest within the royal area 
at Alexandria. These marks of kingship, when observed 
in conjunction with the hereditary title of Imperator 
which had been conferred upon him, and the lifelong 
Dictatorship which was about to be offered to him, 
are indications that the goal was now very near at 
hand; and both Cesar and Cleopatra must have lived 
at the time in a state of continuous excitement and 
expectation. Everybody knew what was in the air, 
and Cicero went so far as to write a long letter to Cesar 
urging him not to make himself king, but he was 
- advised not to send it. The ex-consul Lucius Aurelius 
Cotta inserted the thin edge of the wedge by proposing 
that Czesar should be made king of the Roman domin- 
ions outside Italy; but the suggestion was not taken 
up with much enthusiasm. Cesar himself seems to 
have been undecided as to whether he should post- 
pone the great event until after the Parthian war or 
not, and the settlement of this question must have given 
rise to the most anxious discussions. 


174 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


There was no longer need for the Dictator to hide 
his intentions with any great care; and as a preliminary 
measure he did not hesitate to proclaim to the public 
his belief in the divinity of his person. He caused his 
image to be carried in the Pompa circenis amongst those 
of the immortal gods. A temple dedicated to Jupiter- 
Julius was decreed, and a statue in his likeness was set 
up in the temple of Quirinus, inscribed with the words, 
“To the Immortal God.” A college of priestly Luperci, 
of whom we shall presently learn more, was established 
in his honour; and flamines were created as priests of 
his godhead, an institution which reminds one of the 
manner in which Pharaoh of Egypt was worshipped 
by a body of priests. A bed of state was provided for 
him within the chief temples of Rome. In the formule 
of the political oaths in which Jupiter and the Penates 
of the Roman people had been named, the Genius of 
Cesar was now called upon, just as in Egypt the Ka, or 
genius, of the sovereign, was invoked. “The old na- 
tional faith,”’ says Mommsen, “became the instrument 
of a Cxsarian papacy”’; and indeed it may be said that 
it became the instrument actually of a supreme Cesar- 
ian deification. 

By the end of the year B.c. 45 and the beginning of 
B.c. 44, there was no longer any doubt in the minds of 
the Roman people that Ceesar intended presently to 
ascend the throne; and the only question asked was 
as to whether the event would take place before or 
aiter the eastern campaign. Some time before F ebruary 
15th, he was made Dictator for life; and this, regarded 
in conjunction with the homage now paid to his person, 


_ ae — . > Ss 
iat Ries tec 
Pee 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY § 175 


and the hereditary nature of his title of Imperator, 
made the margin between his present status and that 
of kingship exceedingly narrow. It is probable that 
Ceesar was not determined to introduce the old title 
of “king,” although he affected the dress and insignia 
of those who had been ‘“‘kings” of Rome. It is more 
likely that he was seeking some new monarchical title; 
and when, on one occasion, he declared, ““I am Cesar, 
and no ‘king,’”’ he may already have decided to elevate 
his personal name to the significance of the royal title 
which it ultimately became, and still in this twentieth 
century continues to be. 5 

His arrogance was daily becoming more pronounced, 
and his ambition was now “swell’d so much that it did 
almost stretch the sides of the world.” © He severely 
rebuked Pontius Aquila, one of the Tribunes, for not 
rising when he passed in front of the Tribunician seats; 
and for some time afterwards he used to qualify any 
declaration which he made in casual conversation by 
the sneering words, “By Pontius Aauila’s kind per- 
mission.”’ Once, when a deputation of Senators came 
to him to confer new honours upon him, he, on the other 
hand received them without rising from his seat; and 
he was now wont to keep his closest friends waiting in 
an anteroom for an audience, a fact of which Cicero 
bitterly complains. When his authority was questioned 
he invariably lost his temper, and would swear in the 
most horrible manner. ‘Men ought to look upon what 
I say as law,” he is reported by Titus Ampius to have 
said; and, indeed, there were very few persons who 


5 Kaiser, Czar, &c. 6 Cymbeline. 


176 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


had the hardihood not to do so. On a certain occasion 
it was discovered that some enthusiast had placed a 
royal diadem upon the head of one of his statues, and, 
very correctly, the two Tribunes caused it to be re- 
moved. This so infuriated Cesar, who declared the 
official act to be a deliberate insult, that he determined 
to punish the two men at the first convenient oppor- 
tunity. On January 26th of the new year this oppor- 
tunity presented itself. As he was walking through 
the streets some persons in the crowd hailed him as 
king, whereupon these zealous officials ordered them 
to be arrested and flung into prison. Czesar at once 
raised an appalling storm, the result of which was that 
the two Tribunes were expelled from the Senate. 

Cleopatra’s attitude could not well fail to be in- 
fluenced by that of the Dictator; and it is probable 
that she gave some offence by an occasional haughti- 
ness of manner. Her Egyptian chamberlains and 
court officials must also have annoyed the Romans by 
failing to disguise their Alexandrian vanity; and there 
can be little doubt that many of Cesar’s friends began 
to regard the menage at the transpontine villa with 
growing dislike. A letter written by Cicero to his 
friend Atticus is an interesting commentary upon the 
situation. It seems that the great writer had been 
favoured by Cleopatra with the promise of a gift suit- 
able to his standing, probably in return for some 
service which he had rendered her. 

“I detest the queen,” he writes, ‘“‘and the voucher for her 


promises, Hammonios, knows that I have good cause for 
saying so. What she promised, indeed, were all things of the 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 177 


learned sort and suitable to my character, such as I could 
avow even in a public meeting. As for Sara (pion),7 besides 
finding him an unprincipled rascal, I also found him inclined 
to give himself airs towards me. I only saw him once at 
my house; and when I asked him politely what I could do 
for him, he said that he had come in hopes of seeing Atticus. 
The queen’s insolence, too, when she was living in Ceesar’s 
transtiberine villa,* I cannot recall without a pang. So 
I will not have anything to do with that lot.” 


The ill-feeling towards Cesar, which was very 
decidedly on the increase, is sufficient to account for 
the growing unpopularity of Cleopatra; but it is pos- 
sible that it was somewhat accentuated by a slight 
jealousy which must have been felt by the Romans 
owning to the Dictator’s partiality for things Egyptian. 
Not only did it appear to Cesar’s friends that he was 
modelling his future throne upon that of the Ptolemies 
and was asserting his divinity in the Ptolemaic manner; 
not only had he been thought to desire Alexandria as 
the capital of the Empire; but also he was employing 
large numbers of Egyptians in the execution of his 
schemes. Egyptian astronomers had reformed the 
Roman calendar; the Roman mint was being improved 
by Alexandrian coiners; the whole of his financial 
arrangements, it would seem, were entrusted to Alexan- 
drians; ° while many of his public entertainments, as, 
for example, the naval displays enacted at the inaugura- 
tion of the Temple of Venus, were conducted by Egyp- 
tians. Ceesar’s object in thus using Cleopatra’s 


7 Both Hammonios and Sarapion are common Egyptian names. 

8 This may mean that Cleopatra had gone to some other part of Rome 
either permanently or temporarily. 

9 Suetonius: Cesar, 76. 


178 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


subjects must have been due, to some extent, to his 
desire to familiarise his countrymen with those industri- 
ous Alexandrians who were to play so important a part 
in the construction of the new Roman Empire. 

The great schemes and projects which were now 
placed before the Senate by Cesar must have startled 
that institution very considerably. Almost every day 
some new proposal was formulated or some new law 
drafted. At one time the diverting of the Tiber from 
its course occupied the Dictator’s attention; at another 
time he was arranging to cut a canal through the Isth- 
mus of Corinth. Now he was planning the construc- 
tion of a road over the Apennines; and now he was 
deep in schemes for the creation of a vast port at Ostia. 
Plans of great public buildings to be erected at Alexan- 
dria or in Rome were being submitted to him; or, again, 
he was arranging for the establishment of public 
libraries in various parts of the capital. Meanwhile, 
the preparations for the Parthian war must have oc- 
cupied the greater part of his time; for the campaign 
was to be of a vast character. So sure was he that it 
would last for three years or more that he framed a 
law by virtue of which the magistrates and public 
officials for the next three years should be appointed 
before his departure. He thereby insured the tran- 
quillity of Rome during his prolonged absence in the 
Kast, thus leaving himself free to carry his arms into 
remote lands where communication with the capital 
might be almost impossible. When we recollect that 
Ceesar’s recent campaigns had all been of but a few 
months’ or weeks’ duration, and that the words vent, 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 179 


vidi, vict now represented his mature belief in his own 
capabilities, these plans for a three years’ absence from 
Rome seem to me to indicate clearly that he had no 
intention of confining himself to the conquest of Parthia, 
but desired to follow in Alexander’s footsteps to India, 
and thence to return to Rome laden with the loot of 
that vast country. He must have pictured himself 
entering the capital at the end of the war as the con- 
queror of the East, and there could have been no doubt 
in his mind that the delighted populace would then 
accept with enthusiasm his claim to the throne of the 
world. 

As the weeks went by, Cesar’s plans in regard to 
the monarchy became more clearly defined. He does 
not now seem to have considered it very wise to press 
forward the assumption of the sovereignty previous to 
the Parthian war, since his long absence immediately 
following his elevation to the throne might prove 
prejudicial to the new office. Moreover, a strong 
feeling had developed against his contemplated assump- 
tion of royalty, and Cesar must have been aware 
that he could not put his plans into execution without 
considerable opposition. Plutarch tells us that “his 
desire of being king had brought upon him the most 
apparent and mortal hatred—a fact which proved the 
most plausible pretence to those who had been his 
secret enemies all along.’’? Much adverse comment had 
been made with reference to his not rising to receive 
the Senatorial deputation; and indeed, he felt it neces- 
sary to make excuses for his action, saying that his old 
illness was upon him at the time. A report was spread 


> 


180 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


that he himself would have been willing to rise, but 
that Balbus had said to him, ‘‘ Will you not remember 
you are Ceesar and claim the honour due to your merit?” 
and it was further related that when the Dictator had 
realised the offence he had given, he had bared his 
throat to his friends, and had told them that he was 
ready to lay down his life if the public were angry with 
him. Incidents such as this showed that the time was 
not yet wholly favourable for his coup; and reluctantly 
Ceesar was obliged to consider its postponement. On 
the other hand, there was something to be said in favour 
of immediate action, and he must have been more or 
less prepared to accept the kingship if it were urged 
upon him before he set out for the East. The position 
of Cleopatra, however, must have caused him some 
anxiety. Without her and their baby son the creation 
of an hereditary monarchy would be superfluous. His 
own wife, Calpurnia, did not seem able to furnish him 
with an heir, and there was certainly no other woman 
in Rome who could be expected to act the part of queen 
with any degree of success, even if she were proficient 
in the production of sons and heirs. Yet how, on the 
instant, was he to rid himself of Calpurnia and marry 
Cleopatra without offending public taste? If he were 
to accept the kingship at once and make Cleopatra his 
wife, was she capable of sustaining with success the 
réle of Queen of Rome in solitude for three years while 
he was away at the wars? Would it not be much wiser 
to send her back to Egypt for this period, there to await 
his return, and then to marry her and to ascend the 
throne at one and the same instant? During his absence 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 181 


in the East, Calpurnia might conveniently meet with a 
sudden and fatal illness, and no man would dare to attri- 
bute her death to his and the apothecary’s ingenuity. 

The will which he now made, or confirmed, in view 
of his departure, shows clearly that his desire for the 
monarchy was incompatible with his present marital 
conditions. Without a queen and a son and heir there 
could be little point in creating a throne, since already 
he had been made absolute autocrat for his lifetime; 
for unless the office was to be handed on without dis- 
pute to his son Cesarion, there was no advantage in 
striving for an immediate elevation to the kingship. 
By his will, therefore, which was made in view of his 
possible death before he had ascended his future throne, 
he simply divided his property, giving part of it to the 
nation and part to his relations, his favourite nephew, 
Octavian, receiving a considerable share. A codicil 
was added, appointing a large number of guardians for 
any offspring which might possibly be born to him by 
Calpurnia after his departure; but so little interest did 
he take in this remote contingency that he seems to 
have made no financial provision for such an infant. 
There was no need to leave money to Cleopatra or to 
her child, since she herself was fabulously wealthy. 
This will was, no doubt, intended to be destroyed if he 
were raised to the throne before his departure, and it 
was afterwards believed that he actually wrote another 
testament in favour of Ceesarion, which was to be used 
if a crown were offered to him; but if, as now seemed 
probable, that event were postponed until his return, 
the dividing of his property would be the best settle- 


182 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ment for his affairs should he die while away in the 
East. So long as he remained uncrowned there was no 
occasion to refer either to Cleopatra or to Ceesarion in 
his testamentary wishes; for if he died in Parthia or 
India, still as Dictator, his hopes of founding a dynasty, 
his plans for his marriage to the Queen of Egypt, his 
scheme for training up Cesarion to follow in his foot- 
steps, indeed, all his worldly ambitions, would have 
to be bundled into oblivion. Czesar was not a man who 
cared much for the interests of other people; and, in 
the case of Cleopatra, he was quite prepared to leave 
her to fight for herself in Egypt, were he himself to be 
removed to those celestial spheres wherein he would 
have no further use for her. His passion for her appears 
now to have cooled; and though he must still have 
enjoyed her society, and, to a considerable extent, 
must have been open to her influence, her chief attrac- 
tion for him in these latter days lay in the recognition 
of her suitability to ascend the new throne by his side. 
She, on her part, no doubt retained much of her old 
affection for him; and, in spite of his increasing irritabil- 
ity and eccentricity, she seems to have offered him 
the generous devotion of a warm-hearted young woman 
for a great and heroic old man. 

Ceesar, indeed, was old before his time. The famous 
portrait of him, now preserved in the Louvre, shows 
him to have been haggard and worn. He was still under 
sixty years of age, but all semblance of youth had gone 
from him, and the burden of his years and of his illness 
weighed heavily upon his spare frame. His indomitable 
spirit, and the keen enthusiasm of his nature, held him 


eae a". 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY _ 183 


to his appointed tasks; but it is very doubtful whether 
his constitution could now have borne the hardships 
of the campaign which lay before him. His ill-health 
must have caused Cleopatra the gravest anxiety, for 
all her hopes were centred upon him, and upon that 
day when he should make her Queen of the Earth. 
The fact that he was now considering the postpone- 
ment of the creation of the monarchy until after the 
Parthian war must have been a heavy blow to her, for 
there was good reason to fear lest his strength should 
give out ere his task could be completed. For three 
years and more she had worked with Cesar at the 
laying of the foundations of their throne; and now, 
partly owing to the undesirability of leaving Rome for 
so long a period immediately after accepting the crown, 
partly owing to the difficulty in regard to Calpurnia, 
and partly owing to the hostility of a large number of 
prominent persons to the idea of monarchy, Cesar was 
postponing for three years that coup which seemed to 
her not only to mean the realisation of all her personal 
and dynastic ambitions, but actually to be the only 
means by which she could save Egypt from absorption 
into the Roman dominions or preserve a throne of any 
kind for her son. In the Second Philippic, Cicero says 
of Cesar that | 


“after planning for many years his way to royal power, with 
great labour and with many dangers, he had effected his 
design. By public exhibitions, by monumental buildings, 
by bribes and by feasts, he had conciliated the unreflecting 
multitude. He had bound to himself his own friends by 
favours, his opponents by a show of clemency”’; 


184 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


and yet, when in sight of his goal, he hesitated, believing 
it better to wait to be carried up to the throne by that 
wave of popular enthusiasm which assuredly would 
burst over Rome when he should lead back from the 
East his triumphant, loot-laden legionaries, and should 
exhibit in golden chains in the streets of the capital the 
captive kings of the fabulous Orient. The delay must 
have been almost intolerable to Cleopatra; and it may 
have been due to some arrangement made by her with 
the Dictator and Antony, who now must have been a 
constant visitor at Ceesar’s villa, that an event took 
place which brought to a head the question of the date 
of the establishment of the monarchy. 

On February 15th, the annual festival of the Luper- 
calia was celebrated in Rome; and upon this day all the 
populace, patrician and plebeian, were en féte. The 
Romans of Cesar’s time do not seem to have known 
what was the origin of this festival, nor what was the 
real significance of the rites therein performed. They 
understood that upon this day they paid their respects 
to the god Lupercus; and, in a vague manner, they 
identified this obscure deity with Faunus, or with Pan, 
in his capacity as a producer of fertility and fecundity 
in all nature. Two young men were selected from the 
honourable order known as the College of the Luperci, 
and upon this day these two men opened the proceed- 
ings by sacrificing a goat and a dog. They were then 
“blooded,” and the ritual prescribed that as soon as 
this was done they should both laugh. They next cut 
the skins of the victims into long strips or thongs, 
known. as februa; and, using these as whips, they pro- 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY 185 


ceeded to run around the city, striking at every woman 
with whom they came into contact. A thwack from 
the februa was believed to produce fertility, and any 
woman who desired to become a mother would expose 
herself to the blows which the two men were vigorously 
delivering on all sides. By reason of this strange old 
custom the day was known as the Dies februatus; *° and 
from this is derived the name of the month of February 
in which the festival took place. 

It seems to me certain that this ceremony was 
originally related to the Egyptian rites in connection 
_ with the god of fecundity, Min-Amon, the Pan of the 
Nile Valley. This god is usually represented holding 
in his hand a whip, perhaps consisting originally of 
jackal skins tied to a stick; '* and it has lately been 
proved that the hieroglyph for the Egyptian word 
indicating the reproduction of species '? is composed 
simply of these three jackal skins tied together, that 
is to say the februa. We know practically nothing of 
the ceremonies performed in Egypt in regard to the 
februa, but there is no reason to doubt that the rites 
were fundamentally similar to those of the Roman 
Lupercalia. The dog which was sacrificed in Rome had 
probably taken the place of the Egyptian jackal; and 
the goat is perhaps to be connected with the Egyptian 
ram which was sacred to Amon or Min-Amon. 

Now it is very possible that in Alexandria Cleopatra 


10 The action februare means ‘‘to purify,”’ here used probably to signify the 
magical expurgation of the person'struck and the banishing of the evil influence 
which prevented fertility. 

tx Compare also the whip carried by a Sixth Dynasty noble named Ipe. 
Cairo Museum, No. 61, which seems more than a simple fly-flap 

t2'The Egyptian word is mes. 


186 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


and also Ceesar had become well acquainted with the 
Egyptian equivalent of the Roman Lupercalia, and it 
may be suggested, tentatively, that since Cesar was 
regarded in that country as the god Amon who had 
given fertility to the queen, he may, in Egypt, have 
been identified in some sort of manner with these rites. 
One may certainly imagine Cleopatra pointing out to 
Cesar the similarity between the two ceremonies, and 
suggesting to him that he was, or had acted in the 
manner of, a kind of Lupercus. He had practically 
identified Cleopatra with Venus Genetrix, the goddess 
of fertility; and he may well have attributed to himself 
the faculties of that corresponding god who carried on 
in Rome the traditions of the Egyptian Min, to whom 
already Cesar had been so closely allied by the priests 
of the Nile. The Dictator certainly took great interest 
in the festival of the Lupercalia in Rome, for he re- 
organised the proceedings, and actually founded an 
order known as the Luperci Julii, a fact which could be 
regarded as indicating a definite identification of him- 
self with Lupercus. Indeed, if he was identified with 
Min-Amon in Egypt, and if, as I have suggested, Min- 
Amon is originally connected with the Lupercalia 
celebrations, it may be supposed that Cesar really 
assumed by right the position of divine head of this 
order. Knowing the Dictator to have been so careful 
an opportunist, one is almost tempted to suggest that 
he found in this identification an excuse and a justifica- 
tion for his behaviour to the many women to whom he 
had lost his heart; or perhaps it were better to say that 
his unscrupulous attitude towards the opposite sex, 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY _ 187 


and the successful manner in which, as with Cleopatra, 
he had succeeded in reproducing his kind, appeared to 
fit him constitutionally for this particular godhead. 
Whether or no Cesar, in the intolerable arrogance of 
his last years, was now actually naming himself the 
fruitful Lupercus in Rome as he was the fecund Amon 
in Egypt, it is a fact that upon this occurrence of the 
festival in the year B.c. 44 he was presiding over the 
ceremonies, while his lieutenant, Antony, was enacting 
the part of one of the two holders of the februa. On 
this day, Ceesar, pale and emaciated, was seated in the 
Forum upon a golden throne, dressed in a splendid 
robe, in order to witness the celebrations, when suddenly 
the burly Antony, hot from his run, bounded into view, 
striking to right and left with the februa, and indulging, 
no doubt, in the horse-play which he always so much 
enjoyed. An excited and boisterous crowd followed 
him, and it is probable that both he and his companions 
thereupon did homage to the majestic figure of the 
Dictator, hailing him as Lupercus and king of the 
festivities. Profiting by the enthusiasm of the moment, 
and probably acting according to arrangements pre- 
viously made with Cleopatra or with Cesar himself, 
Antony now stepped forward and held out to the 
Dictator a royal diadem wreathed with laurels, at the 
same time offering him the kingship of Rome. Cesar, 
as we have seen, had already been publicly hailed as 
a god upon earth, and now Antony seems to have 
addressed him in his Lupercalian character, begging 
him to accept this terrestrial throne as already he had 
received the throne of the heavens. No sooner had he 


188 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


spoken than a shout of approval was raised by a number 
of Cxsarians who had been posted in different parts 
of the Forum for this purpose; but, to Ceesar’s dismay, 
the cheers were not taken up by the crowd, who, indeed, 
appear to have indulged in a little quiet booing; and 
the Dictator was thus obliged to refuse the proffered 
crown with a somewhat half-hearted show of disdain. 
This action was received with general applause, and the 
temper of the crowd was clearly demonstrated. Again 
Antony held the diadem towards him, and again the 
isolated and very artificial cheers of his supporters were 
heard. Thereupon Cesar, accepting the situation with 
as good a grace as possible, definitely refused to receive 
it; and at this the applause once more broke forth. 
He then gave orders that the diadem should be carried 
into the Capitol, and that a note should be inscribed in 
the official calendar stating that on this day the people 
had offered him the crown and that he had refused it. 
It seems probable that Antony, appreciating the false 
step which had been made, now rounded off the incident 
in as merry a manner as possible, beginning once more 
to strike about him with his magical whip, and leading 
the crowd out of the Forum with the same noise and 
horse-play with which they had entered it. 

The chances now in regard to the immediate assump- 
tion of the kingship became more remote. Czesar 
intended to set out for Parthia in about a month’s 
time; and it must have been apparent to him that his 
hopes of a throne would probably have to be set aside 
until the coming war was at an end. In regard to 
Cleopatra nothing remained for him to do, therefore, 


THE EGYPTO-ROMAN MONARCHY _ 189 


but to bid her prepare to return to Egypt, there to 
await until the Orient was conquered; and during the 
next few weeks it seems that the disappointed and 
troubled queen engaged herself in making preparation 
for her departure. Suetonius tells us that Cesar 
loaded her with presents and honours in these last 
days of their companionship; and doubtless he en- 
couraged her as best he could with the recitation of his 
great hopes and ambitions for the future. There was 
still a chance that the monarchy would be created 
before the war, for there was some talk that Antony 
and his friends would offer the crown once more to 
Cesar upon the Calends of March; * but Cleopatra 
could not have dared to hope too eagerly for this event 
in view of the failure at the Lupercalia. To the queen, 
who had expected by this time to be seated upon the 
Roman throne, his reassuring words can have been 
poor comfort; and an atmosphere of gloomy foreboding 
must have settled upon her as she directed the packing 
of her goods and chattels and prepared herself and her 
baby for the long journey across the Mediterranean to 
her now uneventful kingdom of Egypt. 
13 Plutarch: Brutus, 


CHAPTER X 


THE DEATH OF CHSAR AND THE RETURN OF CLEOPATRA 
TO EGYPT 


THERE can be little reason for doubt that Antony, 
who is to play so important a part in the subsequent 
pages of this history, saw Cleopatra in Rome on several 
occasions. After his reconciliation to Cesar in the 
early summer of B.c. 45, he must have been a constant 
visitor at the Dictator’s villa; and, as we shall presently 
see, his espousal of Cleopatra’s cause in regard to 
Ceesar’s will suggests that her charm had not been 
overlooked by him. It is said, as we have seen, that 
he had met her, and had already been attracted by her, 
ten years previously, when he entered Alexandria with 
Gabinius in order to establish her father, Auletes, upon 
his rickety throne. He was a man of impulsive and 
changeable character, and it is difficult to determine 
his exact attitude towards Cesar at this time. While 
the Dictator was in Egypt, Antony had been placed in 
charge of his affairs in Rome, but owing to a quarrel 
between the two men, Cesar, on his return from Alex- 
andria, had dismissed him from his service. Very 
naturally Antony had felt considerable animosity to 


the Dictator on this account, and it was even rumoured, 
190 


Bie inne 


THE DEATH OF CHSAR 191 


as has been said, that he desired to assassinate him. 
After the Spanish war, however, the quarrel was for- 
gotten; and, as we have just seen, it was Antony who 
had offered him the crown at the festival of the Luper- 
calia. In spite of this, Cesar does not seem to have 
trusted him fully, although he now appears to have 
been recognised as the most ardent supporter of the 
Cesarian party. 

Cesar had never excelled as a judge of men. Al- 
though unquestionably a genius and a man of supreme 
mental powers, the Dictator was ever open to flattery: 
and he collected around him a number of satellites who 
had won their way into his favour by blandishments 
and by countenance of their master’s many eccen- 
tricities. Balbus and Oppius, Cesar’s two most inti- 
mate attendants, were men of mediocre standing; and 
Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who now comes into some 
prominence, was a young adventurer, whose desire 
for personal gain must have been concealed with dif- 
ficulty. This personage, although only five-and-twenty 
years of age, had been appointed by Cesar to the con- 
sulship which would become vacant upon his own 
departure for the East, a move that must have given 
grave offence to Antony; for Dolabella, a few years 
previously, had fallen in love with Antony’s wife, 
Antonia, who had consequently been divorced, the 
outraged husband thereafter finding consolation in the 
marriage to his present wife Fulvia. The various 
favours conferred by Cesar on this young scamp must 
therefore have caused considerable irritation to Antony; 
and it is not easy to suppose that the latter’s apparent 


192 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


devotion to the cause of the Dictator was altogether 
genuine. Indeed, the rumour once more passed into 
circulation that Antony nursed designs upon Ceesar’s 
life, this time, strange to say, in conjunction with 
Dolabella. On hearing this report the Dictator re- 
marked, that he “did not fear such fat, luxurious men 
as these two, but rather the pale, lean fellows.” 

Of the latter type was Cassius, a sour, fanatical 
soldier and politician, who had fought against Cesar 
at Pharsalia, and had been freely pardoned by him 
afterwards. From early youth Cassius entertained a 
particular hatred of any form of autocracy; and it is 
related of him that when at school the boy Faustus, the 
son of the famous Sulla, had boasted of his father’s 
autocratic powers, Cassius had promptly punched his 
head. Cesar’s attempts to obtain the throne excited 
this man’s ferocity, and he was probably the originator 
of the plot which terminated the Dictator’s life. The 
plot was hatched in February B.c. 44, and, when Cassius 
and his friends had prevailed upon the influential and 
studious Marcus Brutus to join them, it rapidly de- 
veloped into a wide-spread conspiracy. “I don’t like 
Cassius,’ Ceesar was once heard to remark, “he looks 
so pale. What can he be aiming at?”’ 

For Brutus, however, the Dictator entertained the 
greatest affection and esteem, and there was a time 
when he regarded him as his probable successor in 
office. One cannot view without distress, even after 
the passage of so many centuries, the devotion of the 
irritable old autocrat to this scholarly and promising 
young man who was now plotting against him; for, in 


THE DEATH OF CASAR 193 


spite of his manifold faults, Cesar ever remains a 
character which all men esteem and with which all 
must largely sympathise. On one occasion somebody 
warned him that Brutus was plotting against him, to 
which the Dictator replied, “What, do you think 
Brutus will not wait out the appointed time of this little 
body of mine?” It is probable that Cesar thought it 
not at all unlikely that Brutus was his own son, for his 
mother, Servilia, as early as the year of his birth, and 
for long afterwards, had been on such terms of intimacy 
with Cesar as would justify this belief. Brutus, on the 
other hand, thought himself to be the son of Servilia’s 
legal husband, and through him claimed descent from 
the famous Junius Brutus who had expelled the Tar- 
quins. Servilia was the sister of Cato, whose suicide 
had followed his defeat by Ceesar in North Africa, and 
Porcia, the wife of Brutus, was Cato’s daughter. It 
might have been supposed, therefore, that Brutus 
would have felt considerable antipathy towards the 
Dictator, more especially after the publication of his 
venomous Anti-Cato. There was, however, equally 
reasonable cause for Brutus to have sympathised with 
Cesar, for his supposed father had been put to death by 
Pompey, an execution which Cesar had, as it were, 
been instrumental in avenging. As a matter of fact, 
Brutus was a young man who lived upon high prin- 
ciples, as a cow does upon grass; and such family 
incidents as the seduction of his mother, or the destruc- 
tion of his mother’s brother and his wife’s father, or the 
bloodthirsty warfare between his father’s executioner 
and his father-in-law’s enemy and calumniator, were 


194 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


not permitted to influence his righteous brain. In his 
early years he had, very naturally, refused on principle 
to speak to Pompey, but when the civil war broke out 
he set aside all those petty feelings of dislike which, 
in memory of his legal father, he had entertained 
towards the Pompeian faction, and, on principle, he 
ranged himself upon that side in the conflict, believing 
it to be the juster cause. Pompey is said to have been 
so surprised at the arrival of this good young man in 
his camp, whither nobody had asked him to come, and 
where nobody particularly desired his presence, that 
he stood up and embraced him as though he were a 
lost lamb come back to the fold. Then followed the 
battle of Pharsalia, and Brutus had been obliged to fly 
for his life. He need not, however, have feared for his 
safety, for Cesar had given the strictest orders that 
nobody was to hurt him either in the battle or in the 
subsequent chase of the fugitives. From Larissa, 
whither he had fled, he wrote, on principle, to Ceesar, 
stating that he was prepared to surrender; and the 
Dictator, in memory, it is said, of many a pleasant 
hour with Servilia, at once pardoned him and heaped 
honours upon him. Brutus, then, on principle, laid 
information against Pompey, telling Ceesar whither he 
had fled; and thus it came about that the Dictator 


arrived in Egypt on that October morning of which we 


have read. 

Brutus was an intellectual young man, whose writ- 
ings and orations were filled with maxims and pithy 
axioms. He had, however, a certain vivacity and fire; 
and once when Cesar had listened, a trifle bewildered, 


THE DEATH OF CASAR 195 


to one of his vigorous speeches, the Dictator was heard 
to remark, “I don’t know what this young man means, 
but whatever he means, he means it vehemently.’ He 
believed himself to be, and indeed was, very firm and 
just, and he had schooled himself to resist flattery, 
ignoring all requests made to him by such means. He 
was wont to declare that a man who, in mature years, 
could not say “‘no”’ to his friends, must have been very 
badly behaved in the flower of his youth. Cassius, who 
was the brother-in-law of Brutus, deemed it very advis- 
able to introduce this exemplary young man into the 
conspiracy, and he therefore invited him, as a prelim- 
inary measure, to be present in the Senate on the 
Calends of March, when it was rumoured that Cesar 
would be made king. Brutus replied that he would 
most certainly absent himself on that day. Nothing 
daunted, Cassius asked him what he would do supposing 
Ceesar insisted on his being present. “In that case,” 
said Brutus, in the most approved style, “it will be my 
business not to keep silent, but to stand up boldly, and 
die for the liberty of my country.”’ Such being his 
views, it was apparent that there would be no difficulty 
in persuading him, on principle, to assist in the murder 
of Cesar, who had, it is true, spared his life at Pharsalia, 
but who was, nevertheless, an enemy of the people. 
The conspirators, therefore, dropped pieces of paper on 
the official chair whereon he sat, inscribed with such 
words as “Wake up, Brutus,” or “ You are not a true 
Brutus”; and on the statue of Junius Brutus they 
scribbled sentences, such as “O that we had a Brutus 
now!” or “O that Brutus were alive!’ In this way 


196 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the young man’s feelings were played upon, and, after 
a few days of solemn thought, he came to the con- 
clusion that it was his painful duty, on principle, to 
bring Ceesar’s life to a close. 

By March 1st the conspirators numbered in their 
ranks some sixty or eighty senators, mostly friends of 
the Dictator, and had Cesar attempted then to pro- 
claim himself king he would at once have been assassin- 
ated. There were too many rumours current of plots 
against him, however, to permit him to take this step, 
and so the days passed in uneventfulness. He had 
planned to leave Rome for the East on March 17th, 
and it was thought possible that his last visit to the 
Senate on March 15th, or his departure from the capital, 
would be the occasion of a demonstration in his favour 
which would lead to his being offered the crown as a 
parting gift. The conspirators therefore decided to 
make an end of Cesar on March 15th, the Ides of 
March, upon which date he would probably come for the 
last time to the Senate as Dictator. 

Brutus, of course, was terribly troubled as the day 
drew near. He was at heart a good and honourable 
man, but the weakness of his character, combined with 
his intense desire to act in a high-principled manner, 
led him often to appear to be a turncoat. Actually his 
motives were patriotic and noble, but he must have 
asked himself many a time whether what he believed 
to be his duty to his country was to be regarded as 
entirely abrogating what he knew to be his duty to his 
devoted patron. The tumult in his mind caused him 
at night to toss and turn in his sleep in a fever of unrest, 


THE DEATH OF CASAR 197 


and his wife, Porcia, observing his distress, implored 
him to confide his troubles to her. Brutus thereupon 
told her of the conspiracy, and thereby risked the necks 
of all his comrades. 

A curious gloom seems to have fallen upon Rome at 
this time, and an atmosphere of foreboding, due per- 
haps to rumours that a plot was afoot, descended upon 
the actors in this unforgettable drama. Cesar went 
about his preparations for the Oriental campaign in his 
usual businesslike manner, and raised money for the 
war with his wonted unscrupulousness and acuteness; 
but it does not require any pressure upon the historical 
umagination to observe the depression which he now 
felt and which must have been shared by his associates. 
The majority of the conspirators were his friends and 
fellow-workers—men, many of them, whom he had 
pardoned for past offences during the civil war and had 
raised to positions of trust in his administration. At 
this time he appears to have been living with Calpurnia 
in his city residence, and so busy was he with his ar- 
rangements that he could not have found time to pay 
many visits to Cleopatra.t The queen must therefore 
have remained in a state of distressing suspense. The 
Calends of March, at which date the proclamation of 
the monarchy had been expected, had passed; and 
now the Dictator could have held out to her but one 
last hope of the realisation of their jomt ambition 
previous to his departure. Czesar must have told her 
that, as far as the three-year-old Cesarion was con- 


t According to Suetonius, the queen had now been sent back to Egypt, but 
a letter from Cicero, written in the following month, shows that she was in 
Rome until then. 


198 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


cerned, she could expect nothing until the throne had 
been created; for, obviously, this was no time in which 
to leave a baby as his heir. His nephew, Octavian, an 
active and energetic young man, would have to succeed 
him in office if he were to die before he had obtained the 
crown, and his vast property would have to be dis- 
tributed. The Dictator must have remembered the 
fact of the murder of the young son of Alexander the 
Great soon after his father’s death, and he could have 
had no desire that his own boy should be slaughtered 
in lke manner by his rapacious guardians. Yet Cleo- 
patra still delayed her departure, in the hope that the 
great event would take place on March 15th, so that 
at any rate she might return to Egypt in the knowledge 
that her position as Ceesar’s wife was secured. 

The prevailing depression acted strangely upon 
people’s nerves, and stories began to spread of ominous 
premonitions of trouble, and menacing signs and 
wonders. There were unaccountable lights in the 
heavens, and awful noises at dead of night. Somebody 
said that he had seen a number of phantoms, in the 
guise of men, fighting with one another, and that they 
were all aglow as though they were red-hot; and upon 
another occasion it was noticed that numerous strange 
birds of ill omen had alighted in the Forum. Once, 
when Ceesar was sacrificing, the heart of the victim was 
found to be missing, an omen of the worst significance; 
and at other times the daily auguries were observed to 
be extremely imauspicious. An old soothsayer, who 
may have got wind of the plot, warned the Dictator to 
beware of the Ides of March; but Cesar, whose courage 


THE DEATH OF CHSAR 199 


was always phenomenal, did not allow the prediction 
to alter his movements. 

Upon the evening of March 14th, the day before the 
dreaded Ides, Cesar supped with his friend, Marcus 
Lepidus, and as he was signing some letters which had 
been brought to him for approval the conversation 
happened to turn upon the subject of death, and the 
question was asked as to what kind of ending was to 
be preferred. The Dictator, quickly looking up from 
his papers, said decisively, ““A sudden one!”’ the sig- 
nificance of which remark was to be realised by his 
friends a few hours later. That night, Plutarch tells 
us, as Cesar lay upon his bed, suddenly, as though by a 
tremendous gust of wind, all the doors and windows of 
his house flew open, letting in the brilliant light of the 
moon. Calpurnia lay asleep by his side, but he noticed 
that she was uttermg inarticulate words and was 
sobbing as though in the deepest distress; and upon 
bemg awakened she said that she had thought in her 
dreams that he was murdered. Cesar must have 
realised that such a dream was probably due to her 
fears as to the truth of the soothsayer’s prophecy; but, 
at the same time, her earnest request to him not to 
leave his house on the following day made a consider- 
able impression upon him. 

In the morning the conspirators collected in that 
part of the governmental buildings where the Senate 
was to meet that day. The place chosen was a pillared 
portico adjoining the theatre, having at the back a 
deep recess in which stood a statue of Pompey.? Some 


2 The site is near the present Campo dei Fiori. 


200 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of the men were public officials whose business it was 
to act as magistrates and to hear cases which had been 
brought to them for judgment; and it is said that not 
one of them betrayed by his manner any nervousness 
or lack of interest in these public cencerns. In the 
case of Brutus this was particularly noticeable; and it 
is related that upon one of the plaintiffs before him 
refusing to stand to his award and declaring that he 
would appeal to Cesar, Brutus calmly remarked, 
‘“Ceesar does not hinder me, nor will he hinder me, 
from acting according to the laws.” 

This composure, however, began to desert them 
when it was found that the Dictator was delaying his 
departure from his house. The report spread that he 
had decided not to come to the Senate that day, and it 
was soon realised that this might be interpreted as 
meaning that he had discovered the plot. Their agita- 
tion was such that at length they sent a certain Decimus 
Brutus Albinus, a very trusted friend of the Dictator, 
to Cesar’s house to urge him to make haste. Decimus 
found him just preparing to postpone the meeting of 
the Senate, his feelings having been worked upon by 
Calpurnia’s fears, and also by the fact that he had 
received a report from the augurs stating that the 
sacrifices for the day had been inauspicious. In this 
dilemma Decimus made a statement to Cesar, the 
truth of which is now not able to be ascertained. He 
told the Dictator that the Senate had decided unani- 
mously to confer upon him that day the title of king of 
all the Roman dominions outside Italy, and to authorise 
him to wear a royal diadem in any place on land or sea 


pica ee 


é 


THE DEATH OF C#SAR 201 


except in Italy.| He added that Cesar should not give 
the Senate so fair a justification for saying that he had 
put a slight upon them by adjourning the meeting on 
so important an occasion owing to the bad dream of a 
woman. 

At this piece of news Cesar must have been filled 
with triumphant excitement. The wished-for moment 
had come. At last he was to be made king, and the 
dominions to be delivered over to him were obviously 
but the first instalment of the vaster gift which assured- 
ly he would receive in due course. The doubt and the 
gloom of the last few weeks in a moment were banished, 
for this day he would be monarch of an empire such as 
had never before been seen. What did it matter that in 
Rome itself he would be but Dictator? He would 
establish his royal capital elsewhere; in Alexandria, 
perhaps, or on the site of Troy. He would be able to 
marry Cleopatra and to incorporate her dominions 
with his own. Calpurnia might remain for the present 
the wife of the childless Dictator in Rome, and his 
nephew Octavian might be his official heir; but outside 
his fatherland, Queen Cleopatra should be his consort, 
and his own little son should be his heir and successor. 
The incongruities of the situation would so soon be 
felt that Rome would speedily acknowledge him king 
in Italy as well as out of it. Probably he had often 
discussed with Cleopatra the possibilities of this solu- 
tion of the problem, for the idea of making him king 
outside Italy had been proposed some weeks previous- 
ly; 4 and he must now have thought how amused and 


3 Plutarch: Cesar. 4 Page 173. 


202 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


delighted the queen would be by this unexpected deci: 
sion of the Senate to adopt the rather absurd scheme. 
As soon as he had married the Sovereign of Egypt and 
had made Alexandria one of his capitals, his dominions 
would indeed be an Egypto-Roman empire; and when 
at length Rome should invite him to reign also within 
Italy, the situation would suggest rather that Egypt 
had incorporated Rome than that Rome had absorbed 
Egypt. How that would tickle Cleopatra, whose 
dynasty had for so long feared extinction at the hands 
of the Romans! | 

Rising to his feet, and taking Decimus by the hand, 
Ceesar set out at once for the Senate, his forebodings 
banished and his ambitious old brain full of confidence 
and hope. On his way through the street two persons, 
one a servant and the other a teacher of logic, made 
attempts to acquaint him with his danger; and the 
soothsayer who had urged him to beware of the Ides 
of March, once more repeated his warning. But Cesar 
was now in no mood to abandon the prospective excite- 
ments of the day: and the risk of assassination may, 
indeed, have been to him the very element which 
delighted him, for he was ever inspired by the presence 
of danger. 

Meanwhile the conspirators paced the Portico of 
Pompey in painful anxiety, fearing every moment to 
hear that the plot had been discovered. It must have 
been apparent to them that there were persons outside 
the conspiracy who knew of their designs; and when a 
certain Popilius Laena, a senator, not of their number, 
whispered to Brutus and Cassius that the secret was 


THE DEATH OF CAESAR 203 


out, but that he wished them success, their feelings 
must have been hard to conceal. Then came news that 
Porcia had fallen into an hysterical frenzy caused by 
her suspense; and Brutus must have feared that in this 
condition she would reveal the plot. 

At length, however, Cesar was seen to be approach- 
ing; but their consequent relief was at once checked 
when it was observed that Popilius Laena, who had 
said that he knew all, entered into deep and earnest 
conversation with the Dictator. The conversation, 
however, proved to be of no consequence, and Cesar 
presently walked on into the Curia where the Senate 
was to meet. A certain Trebonius was now set to 
detain Antony in conversation outside the doorway; 
for it had been decided that, although the latter was 
Cesar’s right-hand man, he should not be murdered, 
but that, after the assassination, he should be won 
over to the side of the so-called patriots by fair words. 

When Cesar entered the building the whole Senate 
rose to their feet in respectful salutation. The Dictator 
having taken his seat, one of the conspirators, named 
Tullius Cimber, approached him, ostensibly with the 
purpose of petitioning him to pardon his exiled brother. 
The others at once gathered round, pressing so close 
upon him that Cesar was obliged to order them to 
stand back. Then, perhaps suspecting their design, 
he sprang suddenly to his feet, whereupon Tullius 
caught hold of his toga and pulled it from him, thus 
leaving his spare frame covered only by a light tunic. 
Instantly a senator named Casca, whom the Dictator 
had just honoured with promotion, struck him in the 


204 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


shoulder with his dagger, whereupon Cesar, grappling 
with him, cried out in a loud voice, ‘“‘ You villain, Casca! 
what are you doing?” A moment later, Casca’s brother 
stabbed him in the side. Cassius, whose life Ceesar had 
spared after Pharsalia, struck him in the face; Bucoli- 
anus drove a knife between his shoulder-blades, and 
Decimus Brutus, who so recently had encouraged him 
to come to the Senate, wounded him in the groin. 
Cesar fought for his life like a wild animal. s He struck 
out to right and left with his stilus, and, streaming 
with blood, managed to break his way through the 
circle of knives to the pedestal of the statue of his old 
enemy Pompey. He had just grasped Casca once more 
by the arm, when suddenly perceiving his beloved 
Marcus Brutus coming at him with dagger drawn, he 
gasped out, “You, too, Brutus—my son!” and fell, 
dying, upon the ground. 6 Instantly the pack of mur- 
derers was upon him, slashing and stabbing at his 
prostrate form, wounding one another in their excite- 
ment, and nigh tumbling over him where he lay in a 
pool of blood. 

As soon as all signs of life had left the body, the 
conspirators turned to face the Senate; but, to their 
surprise, they found the members rushing madly from 
the building. Brutus had prepared a speech to make 
to them as soon as the murder should be accomplished; 
but in a few moments nobody was left in the Curia for 
him to address. He and his companions, therefore, 


5 Appian. 
6 Some authors state that he cried “Et tu, Brute”; others that the words 
“my son” were added; while yet others do not record any words at all. 


THE DEATH OF CAESAR 205 


were at a loss to know what to do; but at length they 
issued forth from the building, somewhat nervously 
brandishing their daggers and shouting catch-words 
about Liberty and the Republic. At their approach 
everybody fled to their homes; and Antony, fearing 
that he, too, would be murdered, disguised himself 
and hurried by side-streets to his house. They there- 
fore took up their position in the Capitol, and there 
remained until a deputation of senators induced them 
to come down to the Forum. Here, standing in the 
rostra, Brutus addressed the crowd, who were fairly 
well-disposed towards him; but when another speaker, 
Cinna, made bitter accusations against the dead man, 
the people chased the conspirators back once more to 
the Capitol, where they spent the night. 

When darkness had fallen and the tumult had sub- 
sided, Antony made his way to the Forum, whither, he 
had heard, the body of Cesar had been carried; and 
here, in the light of the moon, he looked once more upon 
the face of his arrogant old master. Here, too, he met 
Calpurnia, and, apparently at her request, took charge 
of all the Dictator’s documents and valuables. 

Upon the next day, at Antony’s suggestion, a gen- 
eral amnesty was proclaimed, and matters were amic- 
ably discussed. It was then decided that Cesar’s will 
should be opened, but the contents must have been a 
surprise to both parties. The dead man bequeathed to 
every Roman citizen 300 sesterces, giving also to the 
Roman people his vast estates and gardens on the other 
side of the Tiber, where Cleopatra was, at the time, 
residing. Three-quarters of the remainder of his 


206 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


estate was bequeathed to Octavian, and the other 
quarter was divided between his two nephews, Lucius 
Pinarius and Quintus Pedius. In a codicil he added 
that Octavian should be his official heir; and he named 
several guardians for his son, should one be born to 
him after his death. 

The dead body lay in state in the Forum for some: 
five days, while the ferment in the city continued to 
rage unabated. The funeral was at length fixed for 
March 20th,’ and towards evening Antony went to 
the Forum, where he found the crowd wailing and 
lamenting around the corpse, the soldiers clashing their 
shields together, and the women uttering their plaintive 
cries. Antony at once began to sing a dirge-like hymn 
in praise of Cesar; pausing in his song every few 
moments to stretch his hands towards the corpse and 
to break into loud weeping. In these intervals the 
crowd took up the funeral chant, and gave vent to 
their emotional distress in the melancholy music cus- 
tomary at the obsequies of the dead, reciting monoton- 
ously a verse of Accius which ran, “‘I saved those who 
have given me death.” Presently Antony held up on 
a spear’s point the robes pierced by so many dagger- 
thrusts; and standing beside this gruesome relic of the 
crime, he pronounced his famous funeral oration over 
the body of the murdered Dictator. When he had told 
the people of Cesar’s gifts to them, and had worked 
upon their feelings by exhibiting thus the blood-stained 


7 Ferrero has shown that March 19th was a day of ferie publice, when the 
funeral could not take place. It could not well have been postponed later than 
the next day after this. 


THE DEATH OF CHSAR 207 


garments, the mob broke into a frenzy of rage against 
the conspirators, vowing vengeance upon one and all. 
Somebody recalled the speech made by Cinna on a 
previous day, and immediately howls were raised for 
that orator’s blood. A minor poet, also called Cinna, 
happened to be standing in the crowd; and when a 
friend of his had addressed him by that hated name, 
the people in the immediate vicinity thought that he 
must be the villain for whose life the mob was shouting. 
They therefore caught hold of the unfortunate man, 
and, without further inquiries, tore him limb from 
limb. They then seized benches, tables, and all avail- 
able woodwork; and there, in the midst of the public 
and sacred buildings, they erected a huge pyre, upon 
the top of which they placed the Dictator’s body, laid 
out upon a sheet of purple and gold. Torches were 
applied and speedily the flames arose, illuminating the 
savage faces of the crowd around the pyre, and casting 
grotesque shadows upon the gleaming walls and pillars 
of the adjoining buildings, while the volume of the 
smoke hid from view the moon now rising above the 
surrounding roofs and pediments. Soon the mutilated 
body disappeared from sight into the heart of the fire; 
and thereupon the spectators, plucking flaming brands 
from the blaze, dashed down the streets, with the 
purpose of burning the houses of the conspirators. The 
funeral pyre continued to smoulder all night long, and 
it must have been many hours before quiet was restored 
in the city. The passions of the mob were appeased 
next day by the general co-operation of all those con- 
cerned in public affairs, and the Senate passed what 


208 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


was known as an Act of Oblivion in regard to all that 
had occurred. Brutus, Cassius, and the chief con- 
spirators, were assigned to positions of importance in 
the provinces far away from Rome; and the affairs of 
the capital were left, for the most part, in the hands of 
Antony. 

Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s state of mind must have 
been appalling. Not only had she lost her dearest 
friend and former lover, but, with his death, she had 
lost the vast kingdom which he had promised her. No 
longer was she presumptive Queen of the Earth, but 
now, in a moment, she was once more simply sovereign 
of Egypt, seated upon an unfirm throne. Moreover, 
she must have fancied that her own life was in danger, 
as well as that of the little Caesar. The contents of the 
Dictator’s will must have been a further shock to her, 
although she probably already knew their tenor; and 
she must have thought with bitterness of the difference 
that even one day more might have made to her in this 
regard. It was perhaps true that the Senate had been 
about to offer him the throne of the provinces on the 
fatal Ides; and in that case Ceasar would most certainly 
have altered his will to meet the new situation, if 
indeed he had not already done so, as some say. There 
was reason to suppose that such a will, in favour of 
Ceesarion, had actually been made, * but if this were so, 
it was nowhere to be found, and had perhaps been 
destroyed by Calpurnia. What was she to do? When 
would Octavian appear to claim such property and 
honours as Ceesar had bequeathed to him? Should she 

8 Page 181. 


THE DEATH OF CZHSAR 209 


at once proclaim her baby son as the rightful heir, or 
should she fly the country? 

In this dilemma there seems to me to be no doubt 
that she must have consulted with Antony, the one 
man who had firmly grasped the tangled strings of the 
situation, and must have implored him to support the 
claims of her son. If the public would not admit that 
Ceesarion was Cesar’s son, then the boy would, without 
doubt, pass into insignificance, and ultimately be 
deprived, in all probability, even of his Egyptian 
throne. If, on the other hand, with Antony’s support, 
he were officially recognised to be the Dictator’s child, 
then there was a good chance that the somewhat 
unprepossessing Octavian might be pushed aside for 
ever. Ceesar had taken a fancy to this obscure nephew 
of his during the Spanish War. The young man, 
although still weak after a severe illness, had set out 
to jom the Dictator in Spain with a promptitude 
which had won his admiration. He had suffered ship- 
wreck, and had ultimately made his way to his uncle’s 
camp by roads infested with the enemy, and thereafter 
had fought by his side. He was now following his 
studies in Appollonia, and intended to joi Cesar on 
his way to the East. If he could be prevented from 
coming to Rome the game would be in the queen’s 
hands; and I am of opinion that she must now have 
approached Antony with some such suggestion for the 
solution of the difficulty. Antony, on his part, probably 
realised that with the establishment of Octavian in 
Cesar’s seat his own power would vanish; but that, 
were he to support the baby Cesarion, he himself would 


210 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


remain the all-powerful regent for many years to come. 
He might even take the dead man’s place as Cleopatra’s 
husband, and climb to the throne a: means of the right 
of his stepson. *® 

It would seem, therefore, that he pinball Cleo- 
patra to remain for the present in Rome; and not long 
afterwards he declared in the Senate that the little 
Cesarion had been acknowledged by Cesar to be his 
rightful son. This was denied at once by Oppius, who 
favoured the claims of Octavian, and ultimately this 
personage took the trouble to write a short book to 
refute Antony’s statement. 

The young Dolabella now seized the consulship in 
Rome, and, being on bad terms with Antony, at once 
showed his hostility to the friends of the late Dictator 
by various acts of violence against them. Cesar, before 
his death, had assigned the province of Syria to Dola- 
bella and that of Macedonia to Antony; but now the 
Senate, in order to rid Rome of the troublesome pres- 
ence of the Dictator’s murderers, had given Macedonia 
and Syria to Marcus Brutus and Cassius, and these 
two men were now collecting troops with which to enter 
their dominions in safety. There was thus a political 
reason for Antony and Dolabella to join forces; and 
presently we find the two of them working together 
for the overthrow of Brutus and Cassius. 

Into these troubled scenes in Rome the news present- 
ly penetrated of the approach of the young Octavian, 
now nearly nineteen years of age, who was coming to 
claim his rights; and thereupon the city, setting aside 

8 Which, as will be seen, he ultimately attempted to do. 


THE DEATH OF CHSAR 211 


the question of the conspirators, formed itself into two 
factions, the one supporting the newcomer, the other 
upholding Antony’s attitude. It is usually stated by 
historians that Antony was fighting solely in his own 
interests, being desirous of ousting Octavian and 
assuming the dignities of Cesar by force of arms. If 
this be so, why did he make a point of declaring in the 
Senate that Cesarion was the Dictator’s child? With 
what claims upon the public did he oppose those of 
Octavian if not by the supporting of Cesar’s son? 
We shall see that in after years he always claimed the 
Roman throne on behalf of the child Cesarion; and I 
find it difficult to suppose that that attitude was not 
already assumed, to some extent, by him. 

There now began to be grave fears of the immediate 
outbreak of civil war; and so threatening was the situa- 
tion that Cleopatra was advised to leave Rome and to 
return to Egypt with her son, there to await the out- 
come of the struggle. It is probable, indeed, that 
Antony urged her to return to her own country in order 
to raise troops and ships for his cause. Be this as it 
may, the queen left Rome a few days before April 15th, 
upon which date Cicero wrote to Atticus, from Sinuessa, 
not far from Rome, commenting on the news that she 
had fled. 

As she sailed over the Mediterranean back to Egypt 
her mind must have been besieged by a hundred 
schemes and plans for the future. The despair which 
she had experienced, after the death of the Dictator, at 
the demolition of all her vast hopes, may now have 
given place to a spirited desire to begin the fight once 


212 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


more. Cesar was dead, but his great personality 
would live again in his little son, whom Antony, she 
believed, would champion, since in doing so he would 
further his own ambitions. The legions left at Alexan- 
dria by the Dictator would, no doubt, stand by her; 
and she would bring all the might and all the wealth of 
Egypt against the power of Octavian. The coming 
warfare would be waged by her for the creation of that 
throne for the establishment of which Cesar had indeed 
given his life; and her arms would be directed against 
that form of democratic government which the Dic- 
tator, perhaps at her instance, had endeavoured to over- 
throw, but which a man of Octavian’s character, she 
supposed, would be contented to support. Her mighty 
Cesar would look down from his place amidst the stars 
to direct her, and to lead their son to the goal of their 
ambitions; for now he was in very truth a god amongst 
the gods. Recently during seven days a comet had 
been seen blazing in the sky, and all men had been 
convinced that this was the soul of the murdered 
Dictator rushing headlong to heaven. Even now a 
strange haze hung over the sun, as though the light of 
that celestial body were dimmed by the approach of 
the Divine Cesar. Before the queen left Rome she 
had heard the priests and public officials name him 
God in very truth; and maybe she had already seen his 
statues embellished by the star of divinity which was 
set upon his brow after his death. Surely now he would 
not desert her, his queen and his fellow-divinity; nor 
would he suffer their royal son to pass into obscurity. 
From his exalted heights he would defend her with his 


THE DEATH OF CASAR 913 


thunderbolts and come down to her aid upon the wings 
of the wind. Thus there was no cause for her to de- 
spair; and with that wonderful optimism which seems 
to have characterised her nature, she now set her active 
brain to thoughts of the future, turning her mature 
intellect to the duties which lay before her. When 
Ceesar had met her in Egypt she had been an irrespon- 
sible girl. Now she was a keen-brained woman, en- 
dowed with the fire and the pluck of her audacious 
dynasty, and prepared to fight her way with all their 
unscrupulous energy to the summit of her ambitions. 
And, moreover, now she held the trump card in her 
hands in the person of her little boy, who was by all 
natural laws the rightful heir to the throne of the earth. 


= 
i 
2 
py 





CHAPTER XI 


THE CHARACTER OF ANTONY AND HIS RISE TO POWER 


Wuen Antony and Octavian first met after the 
death of Cesar, the former was in possession of popular 
confidence; and he did not hesitate to advise Octavian 
to make no attempt to claim his inheritance. He 
snubbed the young man, tellmg him that he was mad 
to think himself capable of assuming the responsibilities 
of the Dictator’s heir at so early an age; and as a result 
of this attitude dissensions speedily broke out between 
them. A reconciliation, however, was arrived at in the 
following August, B.c. 44; but early in October there was 
much talk in regard to a supposed attempt by Octavian 
upon the life of Antony, and, as a result of this, the 
inevitable quarrel once more broke out. Antony now 
spread the story that his young rival had only been 
adopted by Czesar in consequence of their immoral 
relations, and he accused him of being a low-born 
adventurer. Towards the end of the year Antony 
left Rome, and all men believed that yet another civil 
war was about to break out. He was now proclaiming 
himself the avenger of the late Dictator, and I think it 
possible that he had decided definitely to advance the 
claims of Cleopatra’s son, Cesarion, against those of 


Octavian. After many vicissitudes he was attacked 
Q17 


218 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


and hunted as an enemy of Rome, and the triumph of 
Octavian, thanks to the assistance of Cicero, seemed to 
be assured; but, owing to a series of surprising incidents, 
which we need not here relate, a reconciliation was at 
last effected between the combatants in October, B.c. 43. 
The two men, who had not met for many months, re- 
garded one another with such extreme suspicion that 
when at length they were obliged to exchange the 
embrace of friendship, they are each said to have taken 
the opportunity of feeling the other’s person to ascer- 
tain that no sword or dagger was concealed under the 
folds of the toga. 

As soon as the paroncilniine had been established, 
Antony, Octavian, and a certain Lepidus formed a 
Triumvirate, which was to have effect until December 
31, B.c. 38, it being agreed that Rome and Italy should 
be governed jointly by the three, but that the provinces 
should fall under distinctive controls, Antony and 
Lepidus sharing the larger portion and Octavian receiv- 
ing only Africa, Numidia and the islands. It was then 
decided that they should each rid themselves of their 
enemies by a general proscription and massacre. A list 
was drawn up of one hundred senators and about two 
thousand other rich and prominent men, and these 
were hunted down and murdered in the most ruthless. 
fashion, amidst scenes of horror which can hardly have 
been equalled in the world’s history. Cicero was one 
of the victims who suffered for his animosity to Antony, 
who was now the leading Triumvir, and was in a posi- 
ion to refuse to consider Octavian’s plea for mercy for 
the orator. The property of the proscribed persons 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 219 


was seized, and upon these ill-gotten riches the three 
men thrived and conducted their government. 

Brutus and Cassius, the two leaders of the conspir- 
acy which had caused Cesar’s death, had now come to 
blows with Antony and Octavian, and were collecting 
an army in Macedonia. Cassius, at one time, thought 
of invading Egypt in order to obtain possession of 
Cleopatra’s money and ships; but the queen, who was 
holding herself in readiness for all eventualities, was 
saved from this misfortune. She was, of course, the 
bitter enemy of Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of 
her beloved Ceesar; but, on the other hand, she could not 
well throw in her lot with the Triumvirate, since it 
included Octavian, who was the rival of her son Ceesar- 
ion in the heirship of the Dictator’s estate. She must 
have been much troubled by the reconciliation between 
Octavian and Antony, for it seemed to show that she 
could no longer rely on the latter to act as her champion. 

Presently Dolabella, who was now friendly to 
Antony and opposed to Brutus and Cassius, asked 
Cleopatra to send to his aid the legions left by the 
Dictator in Alexandria, and at about the same time a 
similar request came from Cassius. Cleopatra very 
‘naturally declined the latter, accepting Dolabella’s 
request. Cassius, however, managed to obtain from | 
Serapion, the queen’s viceroy in Cyprus, a number of 
Egyptian ships, which were handed over without her 
permission.‘ Dolabella was later defeated by Cassius, 


t See page 252, where I suggest that Serapion had possibly decided to throw 
in his lot with Arsinoe, who perhaps claimed the kingdom of Cyprus, and to 
assist the party of Brutus and Cassius against that of Antony which Cleopatra 
would probably support. 


220 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


but the disaster did not seriously affect Cleopatra, 
for her legions had not managed to reach him in time to 
be destroyed. The queen’s next move was naturally 
hostile to her enemy Cassius. She made an attempt to 
join Antony. This manceuvre, however, was under- 
taken half-heartedly, owing to her uncertainty as to his 
relations with Octavian, her son’s rival; and when a 
serious storm had arisen, wrecking many of her ships 
and prostrating her with sea-sickness, she abandoned 
the attempt. 

In October of B.c. 42, Antony defeated Brutus and 
Cassius at the battle of Philippi, Cassius being killed 
and Brutus committing suicide. Octavian, who was 
ill, took little part in the battle, and all the glory of 
the victory was given to Antony. The unpopularity of 
Octavian was clearly demonstrated after the fight was 
over, for the prisoners who were led before the two 
generals saluted Antony with respect, but cursed 
Octavian in the foulest language. It was decided that 
Antony should now travel through the East to collect 
money and to assert the authority of the Triumvirate, 
while Octavian should attempt to restore order in 
Italy, the African provinces being handed over to the in- 
significant Lepidus. The fact that Antony chose for his 
sphere of influence the eastern provinces, is a clear 
indication that Octavian was still in the background; 
for these rich lands constituted the main part of the 
Roman dominions. With a large army Antony passed 
on his triumphal way through Greece, and thence 
through Asia Minor, and at length, in the late summer of 
B.C. 41, he made his temporary headquarters at Tarsus. 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 221 


From Tarsus Antony sent a certain officer named 
Dellius to Alexandria to invite Cleopatra to meet him 
in order to discuss the situation. It was suggested by 
Antony that she had given some assistance to the party 
of Brutus; but she, on the other hand, must have 
accused Antony of abandoning her by his league with 
Octavian. She could not afford to quarrel with him, 
however, for he was now the most powerful man in the 
-world; and she therefore determined to sail across to 
Tarsus at once. 

She knew already the kind of man he was. She had 
seen him in Rome on many occasions, though no direct 
record is left of any such event, and she had probably 
made some sort of alliance with him; while she must 
constantly have heard of his faults and his virtues both 
from Julius Cesar and from her Roman friends. The 
envoy Dellius, whom he had sent to her, had told her of 
his pacific intentions, and had described him as the 
gentlest and kindest of soldiers, while, as she well knew, 
a considerable part of the world called him a good 
fellow. He was at that time the most conspicuous 
figure on the face of the earth, and his nature and 
personality must have formed a subject of interested 
discussion in the Palace at Alexandria as in every other 
court. Renan has called Antony a “colossal child, 
capable of conquering a world, incapable of resisting 
a pleasure’’; and already this must have been the popu- 
lar estimate of his character. The weight of his stature 
stood over the nations, dominating the incident of life; 
and, with a kind of boisterous divinity, his hand played 
alike with kings and common soldiers. To many men 


222 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


he was a good-natured giant, a personification of Bac- 
chus, the Giver of Joy; but in the ruined lands upon 
which he had trampled he was named the Devourer, 
and the fear of him was almighty. 

He was a man of remarkable appéarance. Tall and 
heavily built, his muscles developed like those of a gladi- 
ator, and his thick hair curling about his head, he 
reminded those who saw him of the statues and paint- 
ings of Hercules, from whom he claimed lineal descent. 
His forehead was broad, his nose aquiline, and his 
mouth and chin, though somewhat heavy, were strong 
and well formed. His expression was open and frank; 
and there was a suggestion of good-humour about his 
lips and eyes (as seen in the Vatican bust) ? which must 
have been most engaging. His physical strength and 
his noble appearance evoked an unbounded admira- 
tion amongst his fellow men, whilst to most women 
his masculine attraction was irresistible, a power of 
which he made ungoverned use. Cicero, who was his 
most bitter enemy, described him as a sort of butcher 
or prize fighter, with his heavy jaw, powerful neck, and 
mighty flanks; but this, perhaps, is a natural, and 
certainly an easy, misinterpretation of features that 
may well have inspired envy. 

His nature, in spite of many gross faults, was un- 
usually lovable. He was adored by his soldiers, who, it 
is said, preferred his good opinion of them to their very 
lives. This devotion, says Plutarch, was due to many 


2 Found at Tor Sapienza, outside the Porta Maggiore. The best gold and 
silver coins of Antony, issued by Cneus Domitius Ahenobarbus, correspond 
with the bust in all essentials. 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 223 


causes; to the nobility of his family, his eloquence, his 
frank and open manners, his liberal and magnificent 
habits, his familiarity in talking with everybody, and 
his kindness in visiting and pitying the sick and joining 
in all their pains. After a battle he would go from 
tent to tent to comfort the wounded, himself breaking 
into a very passion of grief at the sufferings of his men; 
and they, with radiant faces, would seize his hands and 
call him their emperor and their general. The simpli- 
city of his character commanded affection; for, amidst 
the deep complexities and insincerities of human life, an 
open and intelligible nature is always most eagerly 
appreciated. 

The abysmal intellect of the genius gives delight to 
the highly cultured, but to the average man the child- 
like frankness of an Antony makes a greater appeal. 
Antony was not a genius; he was a gigantic common- 
place. One sees in him an ordinary man in extraordin- 
ary circumstances, dominating success and towering 
above misfortune, until at the end he gives way unmeri- 
toriously to the pressure of events. 

The naturalness and ingenuousness of his character 
are surprisingly apparent in some of the anecdotes 
related by Plutarch. His wife, Fulvia, is described as a 
matron “not born for spinning or housewifery, nor one 
who could be content with ruling a private husband, but 
a woman prepared to govern a first magistrate or give 
orders to a commander-in-chief.”” 'To keep this strong- 
minded woman in a good-humour the guileless Antony 
was wont to play upon her all manner of boyish pranks; 
and it would seem that he took delight in bouncing out 


924 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


at her from dark corners of the house and the like. 
When Cesar was returning from the war in Spain a 
rumour spread that he had been defeated, and that the 
enemy were marching on Rome. Antony had gone 
out to meet his chief, and found in this rumour an 
opportunity for another practical joke at his stern 
wife’s expense. He therefore disguised himself as a 
camp-follower and made his way back to his house, to 
which he obtained admittance by declaring that he had 
a terribly urgent letter from Antony to deliver into 
Fulvia’s hands. He was shown into the presence of the 
agitated matron, and stood there before her, a muffled, 
mysterious figure, no doubt much like a Spanish 
brigand in a modern comic opera. Fulvia asked 
dramatically if aught had befallen her husband, but, 
without replying, the silent figure thrust a letter at her; 
and then, as she was nervously opening it, he suddenly 
dashed aside the cloak, took her about the neck, and 
kissed her. After which he returned to Cesar, and 
entered Rome in the utmost pomp, riding in the 
Dictator’s chariot with all the solemnity befitting the 
occasion. 

In later years he was constantly playing such tricks 
at Alexandria, and in the company of Cleopatra he was 
wont to wander about the city at night, disguised as a 
servant, and used to disturb and worry his friends by 
tapping at their doors and windows, for which, says 
Plutarch, he was often scurvily treated and even beaten, 
though most people guessed who he was. Antony 
remained a boy all his days; and it must have been 
largely this boisterous inconsequence during the most 





Vatican Photograph by Anderson 
ANTONY 








ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 225 


anxious periods that gave an air of Bacchic divinity to 
his personality. His friends must have thought that 
there was surely a touch of the divine in one who could 
romp throvgh times of peril as he did. 

He allowed little to stand in the way of his pleasures; 
and he played at empire-making as it were between 
meals. On a certain morning in Rome it was necessary 
for him to make an important public speech while he 
was yet suffering from the effects of immoderate drink- 
ing all night at the wedding of Hippias, a comedian, 
who was a particular friend of his. Standing unsteadily 
before the eager political audience, he was about to 
begin his address when he was overcome with nausea, 
and outraged nature was revenged upon him in the 
sight of all men. Incidents of this kind made him at 
times, as Cicero states, absolutely odious to the upper 
classes in Rome; but it 1s necessary to state that the 
above-mentioned accident occurred when he was 
still a young man, and that his excesses were not so 
crude in later years. During the greater part of his life 
his feasting and drinking were intemperate; but there is 
no reason to suppose that he was, except perhaps 
towards the end of his life, besotted to a chronic extent. 
One does not picture him imbibing continuously or 
secretly in the manner of an habitual drunkard; but at 
feasts and ceremonies he swallowed the wine with a will 
and drank with any man. When food and wine were 
short, as often happened during his campaigns, Antony 
became abstemious without effort. Once when Cicero 
had caused him and his legion to be driven out of 
Rome, he gave, in Plutarch’s words, “‘a most wonderful 


226 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


example to his soldiers. He who had just quitted 
so much luxury and sumptuous living, made no 
difficulty now of drinking foul water and feeding on wild 
fruit and roots.”’ 

Antony was, of course, something of a barbarian, and 
his excesses often put one in mind of the habits of the 
Goths or Vikings. He drank hard, jested uproariously, 
was on occasion brutal, enjoyed the love of women, 
brawled like a schoolboy, and probably swore like a 
trooper. But with it all he retained until some two 
years before his death a very fair capacity for hard 
work, as is evidenced by the fact that he was Julius 
Ceesar’s right-hand man, and afterwards absolute auto- 
crat of the East. His nature was so forceful, and yet 
his character so built up of the magnified virtues and 
failings of mankind, that by his very resemblance 
to the ordinary soldier, his conformity to the type of the 
average citizen, he won an absolute ascendancy over the 
minds of normal men. It touched the vanity of every 
individual that a man, by the exercise of brains and 
faculties no greater than his own, was become lord of 
half the world. It was no prodigious intellectual genius 
who ruled the earth with incomprehensible ability, but a 
burly, virile, simple, brave, vulgar man. It was related 
with satisfaction that when Antony was shown the little 
Senate house at Megara, which seems to have been 
an ancient architectural gem of which the cultured 
inhabitants were justly proud, he told them that it was 
“not very large but extremely ruinous”—a remark 
which recalls the comment of the American tourist 
in Oxford, that the buildings were very much out of 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 227 


repair. <A little honest Philistinism is a very useful 
thing. 

A touch of purple, too, as Stevenson has reminded 
us, is not without its value. Antony was always 
something of an actor, and enjoyed a display in a 
manner as theatrical as it was unforced. When he 
made his public orations, he attempted to attract the 
eye of his audience at the same time that he tickled 
their ears. In his famous funeral oration after the 
death of Czesar, we have seen how he exhibited, at the 
psychological moment, the gory clothes of the murdered 
Dictator, showing to the crowd the holes made by the 
daggers of the assassins and the stains of his blood. 
Desiring to make a profound effect upon his harassed 
troops during the retreat from Media, he clothed himself 
in a dismal mourning habit, and was only with difficulty 
persuaded by his officers to change it for the scarlet 
cloak of a general. He enjoyed dressing himself to suit 
the part of a Hercules, for which nature, indeed, had 
already caused him to be cast; and in public assemblies 
he would often appear with “‘his tunic girt low about his 
hips, a broadsword at his side, and over all a large, 
coarse mantle,” cutting, one may suppose, a very fine 
figure. In cultured Athens he thought it was perhaps 
more fitting to present himself in a pacific guise, and we 
find him at the public games clad in the gown and 
white shoes of a steward, the wands of that gentle office 
carried before him. On this occasion, however, he 
introduced the herculean réle to this extent, that he 
parted the combatants by seizing the scruff of their 
necks and holding them from one another at arm’s 


228 =LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


length. In later life his love of display led him into 
strange habits; and, while he was often clothed in the 
guise of Bacchus, his garments for daily use were of the 
richest purple, and were clasped with enormous jewels. 

The glamour of the stage always appealed to his 
nature, and he found, moreover, that the society of 
players and comedians held peculiar attractions for 
him. The actor Sergius was one of his best friends in 
Rome; and he was so proud of his acquaintance with an 
actress named Cytheris that he often invited her to 
accompany him upon some excursion, and assigned to 
her a litter not inferior to that of his own mother, 
which must have been extremely galling to the elder 
lady. On these journeys he would cause pavilions to be 
erected, and sumptuous repasts prepared under the 
trees beside the Tiber, his guests being served with 
priceless wines in golden cups. When he made his 
more public progress through the land a very circus- 
show accompanied him, and the populace was enter- 
tained by the spectacle of buffoons, musicians, and 
chariots drawn by lions. On these journeys Cytheris 
would often accompany him, as though to amuse him, 
and a number of dancing-girls and singers would form 
part of his retinue. At the night’s halt, the billeting of 
these somewhat surprising young women in the houses 
of “‘serious fathers and mothers of families,” as Plu- 
tarch puts it, caused much resentment, and suggested an 
attitude of mind in Antony which cannot altogether 
be attributed to a boyish desire to shock. There 
can be no doubt that he enjoyed upsetting decorum, 
and took kindly to those people whom others considered 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 229 


to be outcasts. Like Charles Lamb, he may have 
expressed a preference for “‘man as he ought noé to be,” 
which, to a controlled and limited extent, may be an 
admirable attitude. But it is more probable that 
actions such as that just recorded were merely thought- 
less, and were not tempered by much consideration 
for the feelings of others until those outraged feelings 
were pointed out to him, whereupon, so Plutarch tells 
us, he could be frankly repentant. 

He cared little for public opinion, and had no idea of 
the annoyance and distress caused by his actions. He 
was much in the hands of his courtiers and friends, and 
so long as all about him appeared to be happy and 
jolly, he found no reason for further inquiry. While 
in Asia he considered it needful to the good condition 
of his army to levy a tax upon the cities which had 
already paid their tribute to him, and orders were given 
to this effect, without the matter receiving much 
consideration by him. In fact, it would seem that 
the first tribute had slipped his memory. A certain 
Hybreas, therefore, complained to him in the name 
of the Asiatic cities, reminding him of the earlier tax. 
“Tf it has not been paid to you,” he said, “ask your 
collectors for it; if it has, and is all gone, we are ruined 
men.” Antony at once saw the sense of this, realised 
the suffering he was about to cause, and being, so it 
is said, touched to the quick, promptly made other 
arrangements. Having a very good opinion of himself, 
and being in a rough sort of manner much flattered by 
his friends, he was slow to see his own faults; but when 
he was of opinion that he had been in the wrong, he 


230 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


became profoundly repentant, and was never ashamed 
of asking the pardon of those he had injured. With 
boyish extravagance he made reparation to them, 
lavishing gifts upon them in such a manner that his 
generosity on these occasions is said to have exceeded 
by far his severity on others. 

He was at all times generous, both to his friends and 
to hisenemies. He seems to have inherited this quality 
from his father, who, from the brief reference to him in 
Plutarch, seems to have been a kindly old man, some- 
what afraid of his wife, and given to making presents to 
his friends behind her back. Antony’s ‘‘ generous 
ways,’ says Plutarch, “his open and lavish hand in 
gifts and favours to his friends and fellow-soldiers. 
did a great deal for him in his first advance to power; 
and after he had become great, long maintained his 
fortunes, when a thousand follies were hastening their 
overthrow.’ So lavish were his presents to his friends, 
and his hospitality, that he was always in debt, and 
even in his early manhood he owed his creditors a huge 
fortune. He had little idea of the value of money, 
and his extravagances were the talk of the world. 
On one occasion he ordered his steward to pay a certain 
large sum of money to one of his needy friends, and the 
amount so shocked that official that he counted it out in 
small silver decies, which he caused to be piled into a 
heap in a conspicuous place where it should catch the 
donor’s eye, and, by its size, cause him to change his 
mind. In due course Antony came upon the heap of 
money, and asked what was its purpose. The steward 
replied in a significant tone that it was the amount 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 231 


which was to be given to his friend. “Oh,” said 
Antony, quite unmoved, “‘I should have thought the 
decies would have been much more. It is too little; let 
the amount be doubled.” 

He was as generous, moreover, in his dealings as in 
his gifts. After his Alexandrian Triumph he did not 
put to death the conquered Armenian King Artavasdes, 
who had been led in golden chains through the streets, 
although such an execution was customary according to 
Roman usage. Just previous to the battle of Actium, 
the consul Domitius Ahenobarbus deserted and went 
over to Octavian, leaving behind him all his goods and 
chattels and his entire retinue. With a splendid nobi- 
lity Antony sent his baggage after him, not deigning to 
enrich himself at the expense of his treacherous friend, 
nor to revenge himself by maltreating any of those 
whom the consul had left in such jeopardy. After the 
battle of Philippi, Antony was eager to take his enemy, 
Brutus, alive; but a certain officer named Lucilius 
heroically prevented this by pretending to be the 
defeated general, and by giving himself up to Antony’s 
soldiers. The men brought their captive in triumph 
to Antony, but as soon as he was come into his presence 
he explained that he was not Brutus, and that he had 
pretended to be so in order to save his master, and was 
now prepared to pay with his life the penalty for his 
deception. Thereupon Antony, addressing the angry 
and excited crowd, said: 

*““T see, comrades, that you are upset, and take it ill that 


you have been thus deceived, and think yourselves abused 
and insulted by it, but you must know that you have met 


232 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


with a prize better than that you sought. For yott were 
in search of an enemy, but you have brought me here a 
friend. And of this I am sure, that it is better to have 
such men as this Lucilius our friends than our enemies.” 3 


And with these words he embraced the brave officer, 
and gave him a free pardon. Shortly after this, when 
Brutus, the murderer both of his old friend Julius 
Cesar and of his own brother Caius, had committed 
suicide, he did not revenge himself upon the body by 
exposing it to insult, as was so often done, but covered 
it decently with his own scarlet mantle, and gave orders 
that 1t should be buried at his private expense with the 
honours of war. Similarly, after the capture of Pelus- 
ium, and the defeat and death of Archelaus, Antony 
sought out the body of his conquered enemy and buried 
it with royal honours. In his earlier years, his treat- 
ment of Lepidus, whose army he had won over from 
him, was courteous in the extreme. Although absolute 
master of the situation, and Lepidus a prisoner in his 
hands, he insisted upon the fallen general remaining 
commander of the army, and always addressed him 
respectfully as Father. 

Many of his actions were due to a kind of youthful 
impulsiveness. He gave his cook a fine house in Mag- 
nesia—the property, by the way, of somebody else—in 
reward for a single successful supper. This impetuosity 
was manifest in other ways, for, by its nature, which 
allowed of no delay in putting into action the thought 
dominant in his mind, it must be defined as a kind of 


3 It is satisfactory to read that Lucilius remained his devoted friend until 
the end. 





ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 238 


impatience. As a young man desiring rapid fame, he 
had suddenly thrown in his lot with Clodius, “‘the most 
insolent and outrageous demagogue of the time,” 
leading with him a life of violence and disorder; and as 
suddenly he had severed that partnership, going to 
Greece to study with enthusiasm the polite arts. In 
later years his sudden invasion of Media, with such 
haste that he was obliged to leave behind him all his 
engines of war, is the most notable example of this 
impatience. The battle of Actium, which ended his 
career, was lost by a sudden impulse on his part; and, 
at the last, the taking of his own life was to some extent 
the impatient anticipation of the processes of nature. 

This trait in his character, combined with an inher- 
ent bravery, caused him to cut a very dashing figure in 
warfare, and when fortune was with him, made of him a 
brilliant general. He stood in fear of nothing, and 
dangers seem to have presented themselves to him as 
pleasant relaxations of the humdrum of life. In the 
battle which opened the war against Aristobulus he was 
the first man to scale the enemy’s works; and in a 
pitched battle he routed a force far larger than his own, 
took Aristobulus and his son prisoners, and, like an 
avenging deity, slaughtered almost the entire hostile 
army. At another time his dash across the desert to 
Pelusium, and his brilliant capture of that fortress, 
brought him considerable fame. Again, in the war 
against Pompey, “there was not one of the many 
battles,” says Plutarch, “in which he did not signalise 
himself; twice he stopped the army in its full flight, led 
them back to a charge, and gained the victory, so 


234 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


that... his reputation, next to Cesar’s, was the 
greatest in the army.” In the disastrous retreat from 
Media he showed the greatest bravery, and it was no 
common courage that allowed him, after the horrors of 
the march back to Armenia, to prepare for a second 
campaign. 

His generalship was not extraordinarily skilful, 
though it is true that at Pharsalia Ceesar placed him in 
command of the left wing of the army, himself taking 
the right; but his great courage, and the confidence 
and devotion which he inspired in his men, served to 
make him a trustworthy commander. His popularity 
amongst his soldiers as has been said, was unbounded. 
His magnificent, manly appearance appealed to that 
sense of the dramatic in which a soldier, by military 
display, is trained. His familiarity with his men, 
moreover, introduced a very personal note mto their 
devotion, and each soldier felt that his general’s eye 
was upon him. He would sometimes go amongst them 
at the common mess, sit down with them at their tables, 
and eat or drink with them. He joined with them in 
their exercises, and seems to have been able to run, 
wrestle, or box with the best. He jested with high 
and low, and liked them to answer him back. “His 
raillery,” says Plutarch, “was sharp and insulting, but 
the edge of it was taken off by his readiness to submit 
to any kind of repartee; for he was as well contented to 
be rallied as he was pleased to rally others.” In a 
word, he was “the delight and pleasure of the army.” 

His eloquence was very marked, a faculty which he 
seems to have inherited from his grandfather, who was 


a a "~ 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 235 


a famous pleader and advocate. As a young man he 
studied the art at Athens, and took to a style known 
as the Asiatic, which was somewhat flowery and 
ostentatious. When Pompey’s power at Rome was at 
its height, and Cesar was in eclipse, Antony read his 
chief’s letters in the Senate with such effect that he 
obtained many adherents to their cause. His public 
speech at the funeral of Cesar led to the downfall of the 
assassins. When he himself was driven out of Rome 
he made such an impression by his words upon the army 
of Lepidus, to which he had fled, that an order was 
given to sound the trumpets in order to drown his 
appealing voice. ‘There was no man of his time like 
him for addressing a multitude,” says Plutarch, “or 
for carrying soldiers with him by the force of words.” 
It was in eloquence, perhaps, that he made his nearest 
approach to a diversion from the ordinary; though 
even in this it is possible to find no more than an 
exalted mediocrity. A fine presence, a frank utterance, 
and a vigorous delivery make a great impression upon a 
crowd; and common sincerity is the most electrifying 
agent in man’s employment. 

Yet another of the causes of his popularity both 
amongst his troops and with his friends was the sym- 
pathy which he always showed with the intrigues and 
troubles of lovers. “In love affairs,” says Plutarch, 
“he was very agreeable; he gained friends by the assist- 
ance he gave them in theirs, and took other people’s 
raillery upon his own with good humour.” He used to 
lose his heart to women with the utmost ease and the 
greatest frequency; and they, by reason of his splendid 


236 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


physique and noble bearing, not infrequently followed 
suit. Amongst serious-minded people he had an ill 
name for familiarity with other men’s wives; but the 
domestic habits of the age were very irregular, and his 
own wife Antonia had carried on an intrigue with his 
friend Dolabella for which Antony had divorced her, 
thereafter marrying the  strong-minded Fulvia. 
Antony was a full-blooded, virile man, unrestrained by 
any strong principles of morality and possessed of no 
standard of domestic constancy either by education or 
by inclination. He was not ashamed of the conse- 
quences of his promiscuous amours, but allowed nature 
to have her will with him. Like his ancestor, Hercules, 
he was so proud of his stock that he wished it multiplied 
in many lands, and he never confined his hopes of pro- 
geny to any one woman. . 
There was a certain brutality in his nature, and of 
this the particular instance is the murder of Cicero. 
The orator had incurred his bitter hostility in the first 
place by putting to death, and perhaps denying burial 
to Antony’s step-father, Cornelius Lentulus. Later 
he was the cause of Antony’s ejection from Rome and 
of his privations while making the passage of the Alps. 
The traitorous Dolabella was Cicero’s son-in-law, which 
must have added something to the family feud. More- 
over, Cicero’s orations and writings against Antony 
were continuous and full of invective. It is perhaps 
not to be wondered at, therefore, that when Octavian, 
Antony, and Lepidus decided to rid the State of certain 
undesirable persons, as we have already seen, Cicero 
was proscribed and put to death. Plutarch tells us 


; 
4 
r 
7 





ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 237 


that his head and right hand were hung up above the 
speaker’s place in the Forum, and that Antony laughed 
when he saw them, perhaps because, in his simple way, 
he did not know what else to do to carry off a situation 
of which he was somewhat ashamed. 

As a rule, however, Antony was kind-hearted and 
humane, and, as has already been shown, was seldom 
severe or cruel to his enemies. To many people he 
embodied and personified good-nature, jollity, and 
strength; he seemed to them to be a blending of 
Bacchus with Hercules; and if his morals were not of a 
lofty character, it may be said in his defence that they 
were consistent with the part for which nature had 
cast him. 

Little is known as to his attitude towards religion, 
and one cannot tell whether he entertained any of the 
atheistic doctrines which were then so widely preached, 
nor does the fact that he allowed himself to be wor- 
shipped as Bacchus help us to form an opinion in this 
regard. It is probable, however, that his faith was of a 
simple kind in conformity with his character; and it is 
known that he was superstitious and aware of the 
presence of the supernatural. A certam Egyptian 
diviner made a profound impression upon him by fore- 
shadowing the future events of his life and warning 
him against the power of Octavian. And again, when 
he set out upon his Parthian campaign, he carried with 
him a vessel containing the water of the Clepsydra, an 
oracle having urged him to do so, while, at the same 
time, he took with him a wreath made of the leaves of 
the sacred olive-tree. He believed implicitly in the 


238 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


divine nature of dreams, and we are told of one occasion 
upon which he dreamed that his right hand was 
thunderstruck, and thereupon discovered a plot against 
his life. Such superstitions, however, were very general 
even amongst educated people; and Antony’s belief in 
omens has only to be noted here because it played some 
part in his career. Until the last year of his life he was 
attended with good luck, and a friendly fortune helped 
him out of many difficult situations into which his 
impetuosity had led him. It seemed to many, that 
Bacchus had really identified himself with Antony, 
bringing to his aid the powers of his godhead; and when 
at the end his downfall was complete, several persons 
declared that they actually heard the clatter and the 
processional music which marked the departure of 
the deity from the destinies of the fallen giant. The 
historian cannot but find extenuating circumstances in 
the majority of the culpable acts of the “colossal child”; 
and amongst these excuses there is none so urgent as 
this continuous presence of a _ smiling fortune. 
“Antony in misfortune,” says Plutarch, “was most 
nearly a virtuous man”’; and if we wish to form a true 
estimate of his character we must give prominence to 
his hardy and noble attitude in the days of his flight 
from Rome or of his retreat from Media. It was then 
that he had done with his boyish inconsequence and 
played the man. At all other times he was the spoilt 
child of fortune, rollicking on his triumphant way; 
jesting, drinking, loving and fighting; careless of public 
opinion; and, like a god, sporting at will with the ball of 
the world. 


ANTONY’S RISE TO POWER 239 


When Dellius came to bring Cleopatra to him he was 
at the height of his power. Absolute master of the 
East, he was courted by kings and princes, who saw in 
him the future ruler of the entire Roman Empire. 
Ceesar must have often told the queen of his faults and 
abilities, and she herself must have noticed the frank 
simplicity of his character. She set out, therefore, 
prepared to meet not with a complex genius, but with 
an ordinary man, representative, ina monstrous manner, 
of the victories and the blunders of common human 
nature, and, incidentally, a man somewhat plagued by 
an emancipated wife. 


CHAPTER XII 
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 


DETERMINED to win the fickle Antony back to her 
cause and that of her son, Cleopatra set sail from 
Alexandria, and, passing between Cyprus and the coast 
of Syria, at length one morning entered the mouth of 
the Cydnus in Cilicia, and made her way up to the 
city of Tarsus, which was situated on the banks of the 
river in the shadow of the wooded slopes of the Taurus 
mountains. The city was famous both for its maritime 
commerce and for its school of oratory. The ships of 
Tarshish (7.e., Tarsus) had been renowned since ancient 
days, and upon these vessels the rhetoricians travelled 
far and wide, carrying the methods of their alma mater 
throughout the known world. Julius Cesar and Cato 
may be named as two of the pupils of this school who 
have played their parts in the foregoing pages; and 
now Antony, the foremost Roman of this period, was 
honouring Tarsus itself with his presence. The city 
stood some miles back from the sea, and it was late 
afternoon before its buildings and busy docks were 
observed by the Egyptians, sheltering against the slopes 
of the mountains. As the fleet sailed up the Cydnus, 
the people of the neighbourhood swarmed down to the 


St. Paul was also trained in this school. 
240 


eh Ce ee 


ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 241° 


water's edge to watch its stately progress; and the 
excitement was intense when it was seen that the 
queen’s vessel was fitted and decked out in the most 
extravagant manner. Near the city the river widens 
into a quiet lake, and here, in the roads, where lay the 
world-renowned merchant vessels, Cleopatra’s ships 
probably came to anchor, while the quays and embank- 
ments were crowded with the townsfolk who had 
gathered to witness the queen’s arrival. 

Gn hearmg of her approach, Antony had seated 
himself upon the public tribunal in the market place, 
expecting that she would land at once and come to pay 
her respects to him in official manner. But Cleopatra 
had no intention of playing a part which might in any 
way be interpreted as that of a vassal or suppliant; and 
she therefore seems to have remained on board her ship 
at a distance from the shore, as though in no haste to 
meet Antony. 

Meanwhile reports began to spread of the magni- 
ficence of the queen’s vessels, and it was said that 
preparations were being made on board for the recep- 
tion of the Triumvir. The crowds surrounding the 
tribunal thereupon hurried from the market place to 
join those upon the quays, and soon Antony was left 
alone with his retinue. There he sat waiting for some 
time, till, losing patience, he sent a message to the queen 
inviting her to dine with him. To this she replied by 
asking him to bring the Roman and local magnates to 
dine with her instead; and Antony, not wishing to stand 
upon ceremony with his old friend, at once accepted 
the invitation. At dusk, therefore, Cleopatra appears 


242 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to have ordered her vessel to be brought across the lake 
to the city, and to be moored at the crowded quay 
where already Antony was waiting to come on board; 
and the burly Roman, always a lover of theatrical 
display, must then have been entertained by a spectacle 
more stirring than any he had known before. 

Across the water, in which the last light of the sunset 
was reflected, the royal galley was rowed by banks of 
silver-mounted oars, the great purple sails hanging idly 
in the still air of evening. The vessel was steered by 
two oar-like rudders, controlled by helmsmen who 
stood in the stern of the ship under a shelter constructed 
in the form of an enormous elephant’s head of shining 
gold, the trunk raised aloft.2. Around the helmsmen a 
number of beautiful slave-women were grouped in the 
guise of sea-nymphs and graces; and near them a 
company of musicians played a melody upon their 
flutes, pipes, and harps, for which the slow-moving oars 
seemed to beat the time. Cleopatra herself, decked in 
the loose, shimmering robes of the goddess Venus, lay 
under an awning bespangled with gold, while boys 
dressed as Cupids stood on either side of her couch, 
fanning her with the coloured ostrich plumes of the 
Egyptian court. Before the royal canopy brazen 
censers stood upon delicate pedestals, sending forth 
fragrant clouds of exquisitely prepared Egyptian in- 
cense, the marvellous odour of which was wafted to the 
shore ere yet the vessel had come to its moorings. 3 


? The elephant’s head I describe from that seen upon the queen’s vessel 
shown upon the coins. 

3 The recipe for the preparation of incense of about this period is inscribed 
upon a wall of the temple of Phile, and shows a vast number of ingredients. 


ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 243 


At last, as the light of day began to fade, the royal 
galley was moored to the crowded quay, and Antony 
stepped on board, followed by the chief officers of his 
staff and by the local celebrities of Tarsus. His meet- 
ing with the queen appears to have been of the most 
cordial nature, for the manner of her approach must 
have made it impossible for him at that moment to 
censure her conduct. Moreover, the splendid allure- 
ments of the scene in which they met, the enchantment 
of the twilight, the enticement of her beauty, the 
delicacy of the music, blending with the ripple of the 
water, the intoxication of the incense and the priceless 
perfumes, must have stirred his imagination and 
driven from his mind all thought of reproach. Nor 
could he have found much opportunity for serious 
conversation with her, for presently the company was 
led down to the banqueting saloon where a dinner 
of the utmost magnificence was served. ‘Twelve triple 
couches, covered with embroideries and furnished with 
cushions, were set around the room, before each of 
which stood a table whereon rested golden dishes inlaid 
with precious stones, and drinking goblets of exquisite 
workmanship. The walls of the saloon were hung with 
embroideries worked in purple and gold, and the floor 
was strewn with flowers. Antony could not refrain 
from exclaiming at the splendour of the entertainment, 
whereupon Cleopatra declared that it was not worthy 
of comment; and, there and then, she made him a 
present of everything used at the banquet—dishes, 
drinking vessels, couches, embroideries, and all else in 
the saloon. Returning once more to the deck, the 


244 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


elated guests, now made more impressionable by the 
effects of Egyptian wine, were amazed to find them- 
selves standing beneath a marvellous kaleidoscope 
of lanterns, hung in squares and circles from a forest of 
branches interlaced above their heads, and in these 
almost magical surroundings they enjoyed the enliven- 
ing company of the fascinating young queen until the 
wine jars were emptied and the lamps had burnt low. 
From the shore the figures of the revellers, moving to 
and fro amidst this galaxy of lights to the happy strains 
of the music, must have appeared to be actors in some 
divine masque; and it was freely stated, as though it 
had been fact, that Venus had come down to earth to 
feast with Dionysos (Antony) for the common good of 
Asia. Cleopatra, as we have already seen, had been 
identified with Venus during the time when she lived 
in Rome; and in Egypt she was always deified. And 
thus the character in which she presented herself at 
Tarsus was not assumed, as is generally supposed, 
simply for the purpose of creating a charming picture, 
but it was her wish actually to be received as a goddess, 
that Antony might behold in her the divine Queen of 
Egypt whom the great Cesar himself had accepted and 
honoured as an incarnation of Venus. It must be 
remembered that at this period men were very prone 
to identify prominent persons with popular divinities. 
Julia, the daughter of Octavian, was in like manner 
identified with Venus Genetrix by the inhabitants of 
certain cities. We have seen how Cesar seems to have 
been named Lupercus, and how Antony was called 
Dionysos; and it will be remembered how, at Lystra, 


j 
4 
, 
: 
} 
be 
A 
4 
4 
’ 
‘ 





ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 245 


Paul and Barnabas were saluted as Hermes and Zeus. 
In the many known cases, such as these, the people 
actually credited the identification; and though a little 
thought probably checked a continuance of such a 
belief, at the time there seemed to be no cause for doubt 
that these divinities had made themselves manifest 
on earth. The crowds who stood on the banks of the 
Cydnus that night must therefore have really believed 
themselves to be peeping at an entertainment provided 
by a manifestation of a popular goddess for the amuse- 
ment of an incarnation of a favourite god. 

It would appear that Antony invited Cleopatra to 
sup with him on the following evening, but the queen 
seems to have urged him and his suite again to feast 
with her. This second banquet was so far more 
splendid than the first that, according to Plutarch, the 
entertainment already described seemed by com- 
parison to be contemptible. When the guests departed 
not only did she give to each one the couch upon 
which he had lain, and the goblets which had been set 
before him, but she also presented the chief guests with 
litters, and with slaves to carry them, and Ethiopian 
boys to bear torches in front of them; while for the 
lesser guests she provided horses adorned with golden 
trappings, which they were bidden to keep as mementos 
of the banquet. 

On the next day, Cleopatra at last deigned to dine 
with Antony, who had exhausted the resources of Tarsus 
in his desire to provide a feast which should equal in 
magnificence those given by the queen; but in this he 
failed, and he was the first to make a jest of his un- 


246 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


success and of the poverty of his wits. The queen’s 
entertainments had been marked by that brilliancy of 
conversation and atmosphere of refinement which in 
past years had so appealed to the intelligence of the 
great Dictator; but Antony’s banquet, on the contrary, 
was notable for the coarseness of the wit and for what 
Plutarch describes as a sort of rustic awkwardness. 
Cleopatra, however, was equal to the occasion, and 
speedily adjusted her conduct to suit that of her burly 
host. “Perceiving that his raillery was broad and 
gross, and that it savoured more of the soldier than 
of the courtier, she rejoined in the same taste, and 
fell at once into that manner, without any sort of 
reluctance or reserve.’’* Thus she soon succeeded in 
captivating this powerful Roman, and in making him 
her most devoted friend and ally. There was some- 
thing irresistible in the excitement of her presence; 
for the daintiness of her person, the vivacity of her 
character, and the enchantment of her voice, were, so 
to speak, enhanced by the audacity of her treatment of 
the broad subjects introduced in conversation. An- 
tony had sent for her to censure her for a supposed 
negligence of his interests; but speedily he was led to 
realise that he himself, and not the queen, had deviated 
from the course upon which they had agreed in Rome. 
It was he who, by his association with Octavian, had 
appeared to desert what Cleopatra believed to be the 
genuine Ceesarian cause; whereas, on the other hand, the 
queen was able to show that she had refrained from 
sending aid to the Triumvirate simply because she 
4 Plutarch: Antony. 





ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 247 


could not decide in what manner the welfare of her son, 
the little Ceesar, was to be promoted by such an action. 
Under the spell of her attraction, Antony, who in the 
Dictator’s lifetime had never been permitted to receive 
in his heart the full force of her charming attack, now 
fell an easy victim to her strategy, and declared himself 
ready to carry out her wishes in all things. 

On the fourth night of her visit to Tarsus, Cleopatra 
entertained the Roman officers at another banquet; and 
on this occasion she caused the floor of the saloon to be 
strewn with roses to the depth of nearly two feet, the 
flowers being held in a solid formation by nets which 
were tightly spread over them and fastened to the 
surrounding walls, the guests thus walking to their 
couches upon a perfumed mattress of blooms, the cost 
of which, for the one room, was some £250. 

In this prodigious manner the next few days were 
spent. The queen made every possible effort to dis- 
play to Antony her wealth and power, in order that she 
might obtain his consent to some form of alliance 
between them which should be directed against Octav- 
ian. Her one desire now was to effect a break between 
these two leaders, to set them at one another’s throats, 
and then, by lending Antony her support, to secure the 
overthrow of Octavian, Czsar’s nephew, and the 
triumph of Cesarion, Cesar’s son. For this purpose 
it was absolutely necessary to reveal the extent of her 
wealth, and to exhibit the limitless stream of her re- 
sources. She therefore seems to have shown a mild 
disdain for the Roman general’s efforts to entertain her, 
and at his banquets she seems to have conveyed to him 


248 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the disquieting impression that she was smiling at his 
attempted magnificence, and was even puzzled by his 
inability to give to his feasts that fairy aspect which 
characterised her own. 

Her attitude caused Antony some uneasiness, and at 
length it seems that he asked the queen directly what 
more could be done to add to the splendour of his table. 
During the course of the conversation which ensued, he 
appears to have told her how much an entertainment of 
the kind cost him; whereupon she replied that she 
herself could with ease expend the equivalent of a 
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterlng upon a 
single meal. Antony promptly denied it, declaring 
that such a thing was impossible; and the queen there- 
upon offered him a wager that she would do so on the 
next day. This was accepted, and a certain Plancus 
was invited to decide it. Antony does not appear to 
have recollected that in time past Clodius, the son of the 
comedian Aisop, was wont to mingle melted pearls with 
his food, that the cost of his meals might be interestingly 
enormous;* for he would then have realised that 
Cleopatra intended to employ some such device to win 
her wager, and he would perhaps have restrained her. 

To the next day’s banquet the Roman looked 
forward with some excitement; and he must have been 
at once elated and disappointed when he found the dis- 
play to be not much above the ordinary. At the end of 
the meal he calculated with Plancus the expenses of the 
various dishes and estimated the value of the golden 


plates and goblets. He then turned to the queen, 
5 Hor. 1. ii. Sat. 3. | 


a ee ee oe ee ee ee a. 





ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 249 


telling her that the total amount did not nearly reach 
the figure named in the wager. 

“Wait,” said Cleopatra. ‘This is only a beginning. 
I shall now try whether I cannot spend the stipulated 
sum upon myself.” 

A signal was given to the attendant slaves, who 
brought a table to her, upon which a single cup con- 
taining a little vinegar was set. She was wearing in her 
ears at the time two enormous pearls, the value of each 
of which was more than half the amount named in the 
wager; and one of these she rapidly detached, throwing 
it into the vinegar, wherein it soon disintegrated. The 
vinegar and some seventy-five thousand pounds having 
then trickled down her royal throat, she prepared to 
destroy the second pearl in like manner, but Plancus 
intervened, and declared the wager won, while Antony, 
no doubt, pondered not without gloom upon the ways 
of women. 

It has generally been thought that the queen’s 
extravagance was to be attributed to her vain desire to 
impress Antony with the fact of her personal wealth. 
But, as we have seen, there was certainly a strong 
political reason for her actions; and there is no need to 
suppose that she was actuated by vanity. Indeed, the 
display of her wealth does not appear to have been on 
any occasion as ostentatious as one might gather from 
the Greek authors, whose writings suggest that they 
attributed to her a boastful profligacy in financial 
matters which could only be described as bad form. 
It would seem rather that the instances of her prodigal- 
ity recorded here were all characterised in appearance 


250 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


by a subtle show of unaffected simplicity and ingenu- 
ousness, a sort of breath-taking audacity, while in 
quality they were largely political and speculative. 

It is very important for the reader to understand 
the attitude of Cleopatra at this time, and to divest 
his mind of the views usually accepted in regard to the 
queen’s alliance with Antony; and therefore I must 
repeat that 1t was Cleopatra’s desire at Tarsus to arouse 
the interest of Antony in the possibilities of Egypt as 
the basis of an attempt upon Rome. She wished to 
lead him, as I have said, to put faith in the limitless 
wealth that might flow down the Nile to fill the coffers 
which should be his, were he to lead an army to claim 
the throne for herself as Ceesar’s wife, and for her son 
as Ceesar’s flesh and blood. Here was the man who 
could conquer for her the empire which she had lost 
by the premature death of the great Dictator. It was 
necessary to make him understand the advantages of 
partnership with her, and hence it became needful for 
her to display to him the untold wealth that she could 
command. There was no particular vanity in her 
actions, nor real wastefulness; she was playing a great 
game, and the stakes were high. A few golden goblets, 
a melted pearl or two, were not an excessive price to 
pay for the partisanship of Antony.. Her son Cesarion 
was too young to fight his own battles, and she herself 
could not lead an army. Antony’s championship 
therefore had to be obtained, and there was no way 
of enlisting his sympathies so sure as that of revealing 
to him the boundless riches which she could bring to 
his aid. Let him have practical demonstration of the 


ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 251 


wealth of hidden Africa and mysterious Asia at her 
command, and he would surely not shun an enterprise 
which should make Cesar’s friend, Cxsar’s wife, and 
Ceesar’s son the three sovereigns of the world. She 
would show him the gold of Ethiopia and of Nubia; 
she would turn his attention to the great trade-routes 
to India; and she would remind him of the advantageous 
possibilities which the great Dictator had seen in an 
alliance with her. In this manner she would again 
win his support, as she believed she had already done 
in Rome; and thus through him the ambitious schemes 
of Julius Cesar might at last be put into execution. 

There were, however, one or two outstanding mat- 
ters which required immediate attention. The Princess 
Arsinoe, who had walked the streets of Rome in Ceesar’s 
Triumph, and had been released after that event, was 
now residing either at Miletus or Ephesus,* where she 
had received sanctuary amongst the priests and priest- 
esses attached to the temple of Artemis. The High 
Priest treated her kindly, and even honoured her as a 
queen, a fact which suggests that he had definitely 
placed himself upon her side in her feud with Cleo- 
patra. She seems to have been a daring and ambitious 
- woman, who, throughout her short life, struggled vainly 
to obtain the throne of Egypt for herself; and now it 
would appear that she was once more scheming to oust 
her sister, just as she had schemed in the Alexandrian 
Palace in the days when Ganymedes was her chamber- 
lain. , 

It will be remembered that the Dictator had given 

6 Josephus says Ephesus, Appian Miletus. 


252 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the throne of Cyprus to Arsinoe and her brother, but it 
does not seem that this gift had ever been ratified, 
though no doubt the princess attempted to style her- 
self queen of that island. It may be that she had come 
to some terms with Cassius and Brutus by offering 
them aid in their war with Antony if they would assist 
her in her endeavours to obtain the Egyptian throne; 
and it is possible that the Egyptian Viceroy of Cyprus, 
Serapion, was involved in this arrangement when he 
handed over his fleet to Cassius, as has been recorded 
in the last chapter. At all events, Cleopatra was now 
able to obtain Antony’s consent to the execution 
both of Arsinoe and of Serapion. A number of men 
were despatched, therefore, with orders to put her to 
death, and these, entering the temple while Arsinoe was 
serving in the sanctuary, killed her at the steps of the 
altar. The High Priest was indicted apparently on 
the charge of conspiracy, and it was only with great 
difficulty that the priesthood managed to obtain his 
pardon. Serapion, however, could not claim indulgence 
on account of his calling, and he was speedily arrested 
and slain. 

Having thus rid herself of one serious menace to her 
throne, Cleopatra persuaded Antony to assist her to 
remove from her mind another cause for deep anxiety. 
It will be remembered that when Cesar defeated the 
Egyptian army in the south of the Delta in March, 
B.c. 47, the young King Ptolemy XIV was drowned in 
the rout, his body being said to have been recognised 
by his golden corselet. Now, however, a man who 
claimed to be none other than this unfortunate monarch 


ALLIANCE OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 253 


was trying to obtain a following, and possibly had put 
himself in correspondence with his supposed sister 
Arsinoe. The pretender was residing at this time in 
Pheenicia, a fact which suggests that he had also been 
in communication with Serapion, who at the time of 
his arrest was likewise travelling in that country. 
Antony therefore consented to the arrest and execution 
of this pseudo-monarch, and in a few weeks’ time he 
was quietly despatched. 

Historians are inclined to see in the deaths of these 
three conspirators an instance of Cleopatra’s cruelty and 
vindictiveness; and one finds them described as victims 
of her insatiable ambition, the killing of Arsinoe being 
named as the darkest stain upon the queen’s black 
reputation. I cannot see, however, in what manner 
a menace to her throne of this kind could have been 
removed, save by the ejection of the makers of the 
trouble from the earthly sphere of their activities. 
The death of Arsinoe, like that of Thomas a Becket, 
is rendered ugly by the fact that it took place at the 
steps of a sacred altar; but, remembering the period in 
which these events occurred, the executions are not to 
be censured too severely, for what goodly king or queen 
of former days has not thus removed by death all 
pretenders to the throne? 

Cleopatra’s visit to Tarsus does not seem to have 
been prolonged beyond a few weeks, but when at length 
she returned to Alexandria, she must have felt that her 
short residence with Antony had raised her prestige 
once more to the loftiest heights. Not only had she 
used his dictatorial power to sweep her two rivals and 


254 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


their presumed accomplice from the face of the earth, 
not only had she struck the terror of her power into 
the heart of the powerful High Priest of Artemis who, 
in the distant A’gean, had merely harboured a pretender 
to Egypt’s throne, but she had actually won the full 
support of Antony once more, and had extracted from 
him a promise to pay her a visit at Alexandria in order 
that he might see with his own eyes the wealth which 
Egypt could offer. For the first time, therefore, since 
the death of Cesar, her prospects seemed once more 
to be brilliant; and it must have been with a light heart 
that she sailed across the Mediterranean once more 
towards her own splendid city. 


CHAPTER XIII 
CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY IN ALEXANDRIA 


THERE can be little doubt that Antony was ex- 
tremely anxious to form a solid alliance with Cleopatra 
at this juncture, for he needed just such an ally for the 
schemes which he had in view. His relations with 
Octavian were strained, and the insignificant part 
played by the latter in the operations which culminated 
at Philippi had led him to feel some contempt for the 
young man’s abilities. The Triumvirate was, at best, a 
compromise; and Antony had no expectation that it 
would for one day outlive the acquisition either by 
Octavian or himself of preponderant power. He hoped 
for the fall of Ceesar’s nephew, and he saw in the alliance 
with Cleopatra the means whereby he could obtain a 
numerical advantage over his rival. 

After the battle of Philippi, Octavian had returned 
to Rome, and Antony now received news that the 
troops under their joint command were highly dissatis- 
fied with the rewards which they had received for their 
labours. There was considerable friction between those 
who were loyal to Octavian and those who thought 
that Antony would treat them more generously; and 


the latter’s agents in Rome, notably his wife, Fulvia, 
255 3 


256 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


were endeavouring to widen the breach, more probably 
of their own accord than with their leader’s direct 
consent. Antony had no wish to break with Octavian 
until he could feel confident of success; and, moreover, 
his attention was directed at this time more keenly | 
to the question of the conquest of Parthia than to that 
of the destruction of Octavian. The great Dictator 
had stirred his imagination in regard to the Parthians, 
and possibly the project of the mvasion of India was 
already exercising his mind as it certainly did im later 
years. His plans therefore, in broad outline, now 
seem to have been grouped into three movements; 
firstly, the formation of an offensive and defensive 
alliance with Cleopatra, in order that her money, men, 
and ships might be placed at his disposal; secondly, 
the invasion of Parthia, so that the glory of his victories 
and the loot of the conquered country might raise his 
prestige to the highest point; and thirdly, the picking 
of a quarrel with Octavian, in order that he might 
sweep him from the face of the earth, thereby leaving 
himself ruler of the world. Then, like Cesar, he would 
probably proclaim himself king, would marry Cleopatra, 
and would establish a royal dynasty, his successor being 
either his stepson, the Dictator’s child, or the future 
son of his marriage with the Queen of Egypt, should 
their union be fruitful. 

Filled with these hopes, which corresponded so 
closely to those of Cleopatra, Antony prepared to go to 
Alexandria in the autumn of the year B.c. 41, intent on 
sealmg the alliance with the Queen of Egypt. He 

1 Page 295. 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 257 


arranged for a certain Decidius Saxa, one of the late 
Dictator’s chosen generals, to be placed in command 
of the forces in Syria; and it was this officer’s duty to 
keep him informed of the movements of the Parthians, 
and to prepare for the coming campaign against them. 
The King of Parthia, Orodes by name, had engaged the 
services of a Roman renegade named Quintus Labienus, 
a former colleague of Cassius and Brutus; and this man 
was now working in conjunction with Pacorus, the 
king’s son, in organising the Parthian armies and 
preparing them for an offensive movement against the 
neighbouring Roman provinces. There seemed thus 
to be no doubt that war would speedily break out, and 
Antony was therefore very anxious to put himself in 
possession of the Egyptian military and naval resources 
as quickly as possible. 

He was about to set sail for Alexandria when news 
seems to have reached him that the troubles in Rome 
were coming to a head, and that his brother Lucius 
Antonius, and his wife, Fulvia, were preparing to 
attack Octavian. He must therefore have hesitated 
in deciding whether he should return to Rome or not. 
He must have been considerably annoyed at the turn 
which events had taken, for he knew well enough that 
he was not then in a position to wage a successful war 
against Octavian; and he was much afraid of being 
involved in a contest which would probably lead to his 
own downfall. If he returned to Italy it was possible 
that he might be able to patch up the quarrel, and to 
effect a reconciliation which should keep the world at 
peace until the time when he himself desired war. But 


258 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


if he failed in his pacific efforts, a conflict would ensue 
for which he was not prepared. It seems to me, there- 
fore, that he thought it more desirable that he should 
keep clear of the quarrel, and should show himself to 
be absorbed in Eastern questions. By going over to 
Egypt for a few weeks, not only would he detach him- 
self from the embarrassing tactics of his party in Rome, 
but he would also raise forces and money, nominally 
for his Parthian campaign, which would be of immense 
service to him should Octavian press the quarrel to a 
conclusive issue. Moreover, there can be little question 
that to Antony the thought of meeting his stern wife 
again and of being obliged to live once more under her 
powerful scrutiny was very distasteful; whereas, on 
the other hand, he looked forward with youthful en- 
thusiasm to a repetition of the charming entertainment 
provided by Cleopatra. Antony was no great states- 
man or diplomatist; and his effective actions were at 
all times largely dictated by his pleasurable desires. 
The Queen of Egypt had made a most disconcerting 
appeal to that spontaneous nature, which, in matters 
of this kind, required little encouragement from with- — 
out; and now the fact that it seemed wise at the time 
to keep away from Rome served as full warrant for the 
manceuvre which his ambition and his heart jointly 
urged upon him. 

Early in the winter of B.c. 41, therefore, he made his 
way to Alexandria, and was received by Cleopatra into 
the beautiful Lochias Palace as a most profoundly 
honoured guest. All the resources of that sumptuous 
establishment were concerted for his amusement, and 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 259 


it was not long before the affairs of the Roman world 
were relegated to the back of his genial mind. In the 
case of Cleopatra, however, there was no such laxity. 
The queen’s ambitions, fired by Cesar, had been stirred 
into renewed flame by her success at Tarsus; and she 
was determined to make Antony the champion of her 
cause. From the moment when she had realised his 
pliability and his susceptibility to her overtures, she 
had made up her mind to join forces with him in an at- 
tempt upon the throne of the Roman Empire; and it was 
now her business both to fascinate him by her personal 
charms, and, by the nature of her entertainments, to 
demonstrate to him her wealth and power. 

“It would be triflmg without end,” says Plutarch, 
“to give a particular account of Antony’s follies at 
Alexandria.” 
amusements of the most frivolous character, and to the 


For several weeks he gave himself up to 


enjoyment of a life more luxurious than any he had 
ever known. His own family had been simple in their 
style of living, and although he had taught himself much 
in this regard, and had expended a great deal of money 
on lavish entertainments, there were no means of ob- 
taining in ‘Rome a splendour which could compare with 
the magnificence of these Alexandrian festivities. His 
friends, too, many of whom were common actresses and 
comedians, had not been brilliant tutors in the arts of 
entertainment; nor had they encouraged him to provide 
them so much with refined luxury as with good strong 
drink and jovial company. Now, however, in Cleo- 
patra’s Palace, Antony found himself surrounded on 
all sides by the devices and appliances of the most ad- 


260 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


vanced culture of the age; and an appeal was made to his 
senses which would have put the efforts even of the 
extravagant Lucullus to shame. Alexandria has been 
called “the Paris of the ancient world,”? and it is not 
difficult to understand the glamour which it cast upon 
the imagination of the lusty Roman, who, for the first 
time in his life, found himself surrounded by a group of 
cultured men and women highly practised in the art of 
living sumptuously. Moreover, he was received by 
Cleopatra as prospective lord of all he surveyed, for 
the queen seems to have shown him quite clearly that 
all these things would be his if he would but cast in his 
lot with her. 

Antony quickly adapted his manners to those of the 
Alexandrians. He set aside his Roman dress and 
clothed himself in the square-cut Greek costume, put- 
ting upon his feet the white Attic shoes known as 
phecasium. He seems to have spoken the Greek lan- 
guage well; and he now made himself diplomatically 
agreeable to the Grecian nobles who frequented the 
court. He constantly visited the meeting-places of 
learned men, spending much time in the temples and 
in the Museum; and thereby he won for himself an as- 
sured position in the brilliant society of the queen’s 
Alexandrian court, which, in spite of its devotion to the 
pleasant follies of civilisation, prided itself upon its 
culture and learning. 

Meanwhile he did not hesitate to endear himself by 
every means in his power to Cleopatra. He knew that 
she desired him. for dynastic reasons, to become her 


* Ferrero. 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 261 


legal husband, and that there was no other man in the 
world, from her point of view, so suitable for the posi- 
tion of her consort. He knew, also, that as a young 
“widow,” whose first union had been so short-lived, 
Cleopatra was eagerly desirous of a satisfactory marriage 
which should give her the comfort of a strong companion 
upon whom to lean in her many hours of anxiety, and 
an ardent lover to whom she could turn in her loneli- 
ness. He knew that she was attracted by his herculean 
strength and brave appearance; and it must have been 
apparent to him from the first that he could without 
much exertion win her devotion almost as easily as the 
great Cesar had done. The queen was young, pas- 
sionate, and exceedingly lonely; and it did not require 
any keen perception on his part to show him how great 
was her need, both for political and for personal reasons, 
of a reliable marriage. He therefore paid court to his 
hostess with confidence; and it was not long before she 
surrendered herself to him with all the eagerness and 
whole-hearted interest of her warm, impulsive nature. 
The union was at once sanctioned by the court and 
the priesthood, and was converted in Egypt into as 
legal a marriage as that with Cesar had been. There 
can be little doubt that Cleopatra obtained from him 
some sort of promise that he would not desert her; 
and at this time she must have felt herself able to trust 
‘him as implicitly as she had trusted the great Dictator. 
Cesar had not played her false; he had taken her to 
Rome and had made no secret of his intention to raise 
her te the throne by his side. In like manner she be- 
lieved that Antony, virtually Ceesar’s successor, woula 


262 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


create an empire over which they should jointly rule; 
and she must have rejoiced in her successful capture 
of his heart, whereby she had obtained both a good-na- 
tured, handsome lover and a bold political champion. 

In the union between these two powerful person- 
ages the historian may thus see both a diplomatic and 
a romantic amalgamation. Neither Cleopatra nor 
Antony seem to me yet to have been very deeply in 
love, but I fancy each was stirred by the attractions of 
the other, and each believed for the moment that the 
gods had provided the mate so long awaited. Cleo- 
patra with her dainty beauty, and Antony with his 
magnificent physique, must have appeared to be ad- 
mirably matched by nature; while their royal and fa- 
mous destinies could not, in the eyes of the material 
world, have been more closely allied. 

We have seen how Antony allowed his more refined 
instincts full play in Alexandria, and how, in order to 
win the queen’s admiration, he showed himself de- 
voted to the society of learned men. In like manner 
Cleopatra gave full vent to the more frivolous side of 
her nature, in order to render herself attractive to her 
Roman comrade, whose boyish love of tomfoolery was 
so pronounced. Sometimes, in the darkness of the 
night, as we have already seen, she would dress herself 
in the clothes of a peasant woman, and disguising 
Antony in the garments of a slave, she would lead him 
through the streets of the city in search of adventure. 
They would knock ominously at the doors or windows 
of unknown houses, and disappear like ghosts when 
they were opened. Occasionally, of course, they were 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 263 


caught by the doorkeepers or servants, and, as Plutarch 
says, “were very scurvily answered and sometimes even 
beaten severely, though most people guessed who they 
were.” 

Cleopatra provided all manner of amusements for 
her companion. She would ride and hunt with him 
in the desert beyond the city walls, boat and fish 
with him on the sea or the Mareotic Lake, romp 
with him through the halls of the Palace, watch him 
wrestle, fence and exercise himself in arms, play dice 
with him, drink with him, and fascinate him by the arts 
of love. The followmg story presents a characteristic 
picture of the jovial life led by them in Alexandria dur- 
ing this memorable winter. Antony had been fishing 
from one of the vessels in the harbour; but, failing to 
make any catches, he employed a diver to descend into 
the water and to attach newly caught fishes to his hook, 
which he then landed amidst the applause of Cleopatra 
and her friends. The queen, however, soon guessed 
what was happening, and at once invited a number of 
persons to come on the next day to witness Antony’s 
dexterity. She then procured some preserved fish which 
had come from the Black Sea, and instructed a slave to 
dive under the vessel and to attach one to the hook as 
soon as it should strike the water. This having been 
done, Antony drew to the surface the salted fish, the 
appearance of which was greeted with hearty laughter; 
whereupon Cleopatra, turning to the discomfited 
angler, tactfully said, “Leave the fishing-rod, General, 
to us poor sovereigns of Pharos and Canopus; your 
game is cities, provinces and kingdoms.” 


264 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


During this winter Antony and the queen together 
founded a kind of society or club which they named the 
Amimetobiot, or Inimitable Livers, the members of which 
entertained one another in turn each day in the most 
extravagant manner. Antony, it would seem probable, 
was the president of this society; and two inscriptions 
have been found in which he is named “The Inimita- 
ble,” perhaps not without reference to this office. A 
story told by a certain Philotas, a medical student at 
that time residing in Alexandria, will best illustrate the 
prodigality of the feasts provided by the members of 
this club. Philotas was one day visiting the kitchens of 
Cleopatra’s Palace, and was surprised to see no less — 
than eight wild boars roasting whole. “You evidently 
have a great number of guests to-day,” he said to the 
cook; to which the latter replied, “‘“No, there are not 
above twelve to dine, but the meat has to be served up 
just roasted to a turn; and maybe Antony will wish to 
dine now, maybe not for an hour, yet if anything is even 
one minute ill-timed it will be spoilt, so that not one 
but many meals must be in readiness, as it is impossible 
to guess at his dining hour.” 

As an example of the food served at these Alexan- 
drian banquets, I may be permitted to give a list of the 
dishes provided some years previously at a dinner given 
in Rome by Mucius Lentulus Niger, at which Julius 
Cesar had been one of the guests; but it is to be remem- 
bered that Cleopatra’s feasts are thought to have been 
far more prodigious than any known in Rome. The 
menu is as follows: Sea-hedgehogs; oysters; mussels; 
sphondyli; fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 265 


oyster and mussel pasties; black and white sea-acorns; 
sphondyli again; glycimarides; sea-nettles; becaficoes; 
roe-ribs; boar’s ribs; fowls dressed with flour; becaficoes 
again; purple shell-fish of two kinds; sow’s udder; 
boar’s head; fish pasties; ducks; boiled teals; hares; 
roasted fowls; starch-pastry; and Pontic pastry. Varro, 
in one of his satires, mentions some of the most noted 
foreign delicacies which were to be found upon the 
tables of the rich. These include peacocks from Sa- 
mos; grouse from Phrygia; cranes from Melos; kids 
from Ambracia; tunny-fish from Chalcedon; murzenas 
from the Straits of Gades; ass-fish from Pessinus; 
oysters and scallops from Tarentum; sturgeons from 
Rhodes; scarus-fish from Cilicia; nuts irom Thasos, 
and acorns from Spain. The vegetables then known 
included most of those now eaten, with the notable ex- 
ception, of course, of potatoes. The main meal of the 
day, the cena, was often prolonged into a drinking 
party, known as commissatio, at which an Arbiter 
bibendi, or Master of Revels, was appointed by the 
throwing of dice, whose duty it was to mix the wine in 
a large bowl. The diners lay upon couches usually ar- 
ranged round three sides of the table, and they ate their 
food with their fingers. Chaplets of flowers were placed 
upon their heads, cinnamon was sprinkled upon the 
hair, and sweet perfumes were thrown upon their bodies, 
and sometimes even mixed with wines. During the 
meals the guests were entertained by the performances 
of dancing girls, musicians, actors, acrobats, clowns, 
dwarfs, or even gladiators; and afterwards dice-throw- 
3 Maquardt: Privatleben, p. 409. 


266 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ing and other games of chance were indulged in. The 
decoration of the rooms and the splendour of the furni- 
ture and plate were always very carefully considered, 
Cleopatra’s banquets being specially noteworthy for 
the magnificence of the table services. These dishes and 
drinking vessels, which the queen was wont modestly 
to describe as her Kerama or “earthenware,” were 
usually made of gold and silver encrusted with precious 
stones; and so famous were they for their beauty of 
workmanship that three centuries later they formed 
still a standard of perfection, Queen Zenobia of Palmyra 
being related to have collected them eagerly for her 
own use. 

Thus, with feasting, merry-making, and amusements 
of all kinds, the winter slipped by. To a large extent 
Plutarch is justified in stating that in Alexandria, 
Antony “squandered that most costly of all valuables, 
time’’; but the months were not altogether wasted. He 
and Cleopatra had cemented their alliance by living to- 
gether in the most intimate relations; and both now 
thought it probable that when the time came for the 
attempted overthrow of Octavian they would fight their 
battle side by side. By becoming Cleopatra’s lover, 
and by appealing to the purely instinctive side of her 
nature, Antony had obtained from her the whole- 
hearted promise of Egypt’s support in all his undertak- 
ings; and these happy winter months in Alexandria 
could not have seemed to him to be wasted when each 
day the powerful young queen came to be more com- 
pletely at his beck and call. The course of Cleopatra’s 
love for Antony seems to have followed almost pre- 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 267 


cisely the same lines as had her love for Julius Ceesar. 
Inspired at first by a political motive, she had come to 
feel a genuine and romantic affection for her Roman 
consort; and the intimacies which ensued, though 
largely due to the weaknesses of the flesh, seemed to 
find full justification in the fact that her dynastic ambi- 
tions were furthered by this means. Cleopatra thought 
of Antony as her husband, and she wished to be re- 
garded as his wife. The fact that no public marriage 
had taken place was of little consequence; for she, as 
goddess and queen, must have felt herself exempt from 
the common law, and at perfect liberty to contract 
whatever union seemed desirable to her for the good of 
her country and dynasty, and for the satisfaction of 
her own womanly instincts. Early in the year B.c. 40 
she and Antony became aware that their union was to 
be fruitful; and this fact must have made Cleopatra 
more than ever anxious to keep Antony in Alexandria 
with her, and to bind him to her by causing him to be 
recognised as her consort. He was not willing, however, 
to assume the rank and status of King of Egypt, for 
such a move would inevitably precipitate the quarrel 
with Octavian, and he would then be obliged to stake 
all on an immediate war with the faction which would 
assuredly come to be recognised as the legitimate 
Roman party. This unwillingness on his part to bind 
himself to her must have caused her some misgiving; 
and, as the winter drew to a close, I think that the 
queen must have felt somewhat apprehensive in re- 
gard to Antony’s sincerity. 

Setting aside all sentimental factors in the situation, 


268 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


and leaving out of consideration for the moment all 
physical causes of the alliance, it will be seen that 
Antony’s position was now more satisfactory than was 
that of the often sorely perplexed queen. By spending 
the winter at Alexandria, the Roman Triumvir had kept 
himself aloof from the political troubles in Italy at a 
time when his presence at home might have complicated 
matters to his own disadvantage; he had obtained the 
full support of Egyptian wealth and Egyptian arms 
should he require them; and he had prepared the way 
for a definite marriage with Cleopatra at the moment 
when he should desire her partnership in the foundation 
of a great monarchy such as that for which Julius Cesar 
had striven. He had not yet irrevocably compromised 
himself, and he was free to return to his Roman order 
of life with superficially clean hands. Nobody in Rome 
would think the less of him for having combined a cer- 
tain amount of pleasure with the obvious business which 
had called him to Egypt; and his friends would cer- 
tainly be as easily persuaded to accept the political 
excuses which he would advance for his lengthy resi- 
dence in Alexandria as the Ceesarion party had been to 
admit those put forward by the great Dictator under 
very similar circumstances. Like Julius Cesar and like 
Pompey, Antony was certainly justified in making him- 
self the patron of the wealthy Egyptian court; and all 
Roman statesmen were aware how desirable it was at 
this juncture for a party leader to cement an alliance 
with the powerful queen of that country. 

On the part of Cleopatra, however, the circum- 
stances were far less happy. She had staked all on the 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 269 


alliance with Antony—her personal honour and prestige 
as well as her dynasty’s future; and, in return for her 
great gifts, she must have been beginning to feel that 
she had received nothing save vague promises and un- 
satisfactory assurances. Without Antony’s help not 
only would she lose all hope of an Egypto-Roman 
throne for herself and her son Ceesarion, but she would 
inevitably fail to keep Egypt from absorption into the 
Roman dominions. There were only two mighty leaders 
at that time in the Roman world—Octavian and An- 
tony; and Octavian was her relentless enemy, for the 
reason that her son Cesarion was his rival in the claim 
on the Dictator’s worldly and political estate. Failing 
the support of Antony there were no means of retaining 
her country’s liberty, except perhaps by the desperate 
eventuality of some sort of alliance with Parthia. It 
must have occurred to her that Egypt, with its growing 
trade with southern India, might join forces with 
Parthia, whose influence in northern India must have 
been great, and might thus effect an amalgamation of 
nations hostile to Rome, which in a vast semicircle 
should include Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, India, 
Scythia, Parthia, Armenia, Syria, and perhaps Asia 
Minor. Such a combination might be expected to 
sweep Rome from the face of the earth; but the diffi- 
culties in the way of the huge union were almost in- 
superable, and the alliance with Antony was infinitely 
more tangible. Yet, towards the end of the winter, she 
must constantly have asked herself whether she could 
trust Antony, to whom she had given so much. She 
loved him, she had given herself to him; but she must 


270 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


have known him to be unreliable, inconsequent, and, 
in certain aspects, merely an overgrown boy. The 
stakes for which she was fighting were so absolutely es- 
sential to herself and to her country; the champion 
whose services she had enlisted was so light-hearted, 
so reluctant to pledge himself. And now that she was 
about to bear him a child, and thus to bring before his 
wayward notice the grave responsibilities which she 
felt he had so flippantly undertaken, would he stand by 
her as Cesar had done, or would he desert her? 

Her feelings may be imagined, therefore, when in 
February, B.c. 40, Antony told her that he had received 
disconcerting news from Rome and from Syria, and that 
he must leave her at once. The news from Rome does 
not appear to have been very definite, but it gave him to 
understand that his wife and his brother had come to 
actual blows with Octavian, and, being worsted, had 
fled from Italy. From Syria, however, came a very 
urgent despatch, in regard to which there could be no 
doubts. Some of the Syrian princes whom he had de- 
posed in the previous autumn, together with Antigonus, 
whose claims to the throne of Palestine he had rejected, 
had made an alliance with the Parthians and were 
marching down from the north-east against Decimus 
Saxa, the governor of Syria. The Roman forces in that 
country were few in number, consisting for the most 
part of the remnants of the army of Brutus and Cassius: 
and they could hardly be expected to put up a good 
fight against the invaders. Antony’s own trusted 
legions were now stationed in Italy, Gaul, and Mace- 
donia, and there were many grave reasons for their 


CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY 271 


retention in their present quarters. The situation, 
therefore, was very serious, and Antony was obliged to 
bring his pleasant visit to Alexandria to an abrupt end. 
Plutarch describes him as “‘rousing himself with diffi- 
culty from sleep, and shaking off the fumes of wine,” in 
preparation for his departure; but I do not think that 
his winter had been so debauched as these words sug- 
gest. He had combined business and pleasure, as the 
saying is, and at times had lost sight of the one in his 
eager prosecution of the other; but, looking at the mat- 
ter purely from a hygienic point of view, it seems pro- 
bable that the shunting, riding, and military exercises of 
which Plutarch speaks, had kept him in a fairly healthy 
condition in spite of the stupendous character of the 
meals set before him. 

The parting of Antony and Cleopatra early in 
March must have contained in it an element of real 
tragedy. He could not tell what difficulties were in 
store for him, and at the moment he had not asked the 
queen for any military help. He must have bade her 
lie low until he was able to tell her in what manner she 
could best help their cause; and thereby he consigned 
her to a period of deep anxiety and sustained worry. 
In loneliness she would have to face her coming confine- 
ment, and, like a deserted courtesan, would have to 
nurse a fatherless child. She would have to hold her 
throne without the comfort of a husband’s advice; and 
in all things she would once more be obliged to live the 
dreary life of a solitary, unmated queen. It was a 
miserable prospect, but, as will be seen in the following 
chapter, the actual event proved to be far more dis- 


272 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


tressing than she had expected; for, as Antony sailed 
out of the harbour of Alexandria, and was shut out 
from sight behind the mighty tower of Pharos, Cleo- 
patra did not know that she would not see his face 
again for four long years. 


aM ™ < 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED BETWEEN CLEOPATRA AND 
ANTONY 


In the autumn of the year B.c. 40, some six months 
after the departure of Antony; Cleopatra gave birth to 
twins, a boy and a girl, whom she named Alexander 
Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the Sun and the Moon, 
With this event she passes almost entirely from the 
pages of history for more than three years, and we hear 
hardly anything of her doings until the beginning of 
p.c. 36. During this time she must have been consider- 
ably occupied in governing her own kingdom and in 
watching, with a kind of despair, the complicated events 
in the Roman world. Despatches from Europe must 
have come to her from time to time telling of the pro- 
gress of affairs, but almost all the news which she thus 
received was disappointing and disconcerting to her; 
and one must suppose that she passed these years in 
very deep sadness and depression. I do not think that 
any historian has attempted to point out to his readers 
the painful condition of disillusionment in which the 
little queen now found herself. When Antony left her 
she must have expected him either to return soon to 


her, or presently to send his lieutenants to bring her to 
R78 


274 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


him; but the weeks passed and no such event took place. 
While she suffered all the misery of lonely child-birth, 
her consort was engaged in absorbing affairs in which 
she played no immediate part; and it seems certain that 
in the stress of his desperate circumstances the incon- 
sequent Antony had put her almost entirely from his 
thoughts. 

When he left her in the spring of B.c. 40 he sailed 
straight across the Mediterranean to Tyre, where he 
learnt to his dismay that practically all Syria and 
Phoenicia had fallen into the hands of the Parthians, 
and that there was no chance of resisting their advance 
successfully with the troops now holding the few re- 
maining seaport towns. He therefore hastened with 200 
ships by Cyprus and Rhodes to Greece, abandoning 
Syria, for the time being, to the enemy. Arriving at 
Ephesus, he heard details of the troubles in Italy; how 
his supporters had been besieged by Octavian in 
Perugia, which had at length been captured; and how 
all his friends and relatives had fled from Italy. His 
wife, Fulvia, he was told, escorted by 3000 cavalry, had 
sailed from Brundisium for Greece, and would soon 
join him there; and his mother, Julia, had fled to the 
popular hero, Sextus Pompeius, the outlawed son of the 
great Pompey, who had received her very kindly. 
Thus, not only was Italy shut to Antony, since Octa- 
vian was now sole master of the country, but he seemed 
likely also to be turned out of his eastern provinces by 
the advance of the Parthians. His position was a 
desperate one; and he must now have both reproached 
himself very deeply for his waste of time in Alexandria 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED Q75 


and blamed his relations for their impetuosity in making 
war against Octavian. 

Toward the end of June, Antony arrived in Athens, 
and there he was obliged to go through the ordeal of 
meeting the domineering Fulvia, of whom he was not a 
little afraid, more especially in view of his notorious 
intrigue with the Queen of Egypt. The ensuing inter- 
views between them must have been of a very painful 
character. Fulvia probably bitterly reproved her er- 
rant husband for deserting her and for remaining so 
long with Cleopatra, while Antony must have abused 
her roundly for making so disastrous a mess of his af- 
fairs in Italy. Ultimately the unfortunate woman 
seems to have been crushed and dispirited by Antony’s 
continued anger; and having fallen ill while staying at 
Sicyon, some sixty miles west of Athens, and lacking 
the desire to live, she there died in the month of August. 
Meanwhile, Antony, having made an alliance with 
Sextus Pompeius, was ravaging the coasts of Italy in a 
rather futile attempt to regain some of his lost prestige; 
but no sooner was the death of Fulvia announced than 
he shifted the entire blame for the war on to his late 
wife’s shoulders, and speedily made his peace with 
Octavian. The two rivals met at Brundisium in Sep- 
tember, B.c. 40, and a treaty was made between them 
by which the peace of the Roman world was expected 
to be assured for some years to come. It was arranged 
that Octavian should remain autocrat in Italy, and 
should hold all the European provinces, including Dal- 
matia and Illyria; and that Antony should be master 
of the East, his dominions comprising Macedonia, 


276 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Greece, Bithynia, Asia, Syria, and Cyrene. The re- 
maining provinces of North Africa, west of Cyrene, 
fell to the lot of the third Triumvir, the insignificant 
Lepidus. This treaty was sealed by the marriage of 
Antony with Octavia, the sister of Octavian, a young 
woman who had been left a widow some months pre- 
viously, and the wedding was celebrated in Rome in 
October, B.c. 40, the populace showing peculiar pleasure 
at seeing the two rivals, whose quarrels had caused 
such bloodshed and misery, thus fraternising in the 
streets of the capital. 

The consternation of Cleopatra, when the news of 
Antony’s marriage reached her, must have been sad to 
witness. The twins whom she had borne to him were 
but a few weeks old at the time when their father’s 
perfidy was thus made known to her; and bitterly must 
she have chided herself for ever putting her trust in so 
unstable a man. It now seemed to her that he had come 
to Alexandria as it were to fleece her of her wealth, and — 
she, falling a victim to his false protestations of love, 
had given her all to him, only to be deserted when most 
she needed him. With the news of his marriage, her 
hopes of obtaining a vast kingdom for herself and for 
Czesar’s son were driven from her mind, and her plans 
for the future had to be diverted into other directions. 
She must have determined at once to give no more as- 
sistance to Antony, either in money or in materials of 
war; and we have no evidence of any such help being 
offered to him in the military operations which ensued 
during the next two years. Cleopatra had perhaps 
known Antony’s new wife in Rome, and certainly she 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED Q77 


must have heard much of her charms and her goodness. 
Plutarch tells us that Octavia was younger and more 
beautiful than the queen, and one may therefore under- 
stand how greatly Cleopatra must have suffered at this 
time. Not only was her heart heavy with the thought 
of the miscarriage of all her schemes, but her mind it 
would seem, was aflame with womanly jealousy. 

In the following year, B.c. 39, by the force of public 
opinion, Sextus Pompeius was admitted to the general 
peace, the daughter of the sea-rover marrying Marcel- 
lus, the son of Octavian. The agreement was made at 
Misenum (not far from Naples) and was celebrated by a 
banquet which was given by Sextus Pompeius on board 
his flag-ship, a galley of six banks of oars, “‘the only 
house,” as the host declared, “that Pompey is heir to of 
his father’s.” During the feast the guests drank 
heavily, and presently many irresponsible jests began 
to be made in regard to Antony and Cleopatra. Antony 
very naturally was annoyed at the remarks which were 
passed, and there seems to have been some danger of a 
fracas. Observing this, a pirate-chief named Menas, 
who was one of the guests, whispered to Sextus: “Shall 
I cut the cables and make you master of the whole 


99 


Roman Empire?” ‘“Menas,”’ replied he, after a mo- 
ment’s thought, “‘this might have been done without 
telling me, but now we must rest content. I cannot 
break my word.” Thus Antony was saved from assas- 
sination, and incidentally it may be remarked that had 
_ he been done to death at this time, history would prob- 
ably have had to record an alliance between Sextus and 


Cleopatra directed against Octavian, which might have 


278 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


been as fruitful of romantic incident as was the story 
which has here to be related. We hear vaguely of some 
sort of negotiations between Sextus and the queen, and 
it is very probable that with his rise to a position of im- 
portance, Cleopatra would have attempted to make an 
alliance with this son of Egypt’s former patron. 

In September, B.c. 39, Octavia presented Antony 
with a daughter who was called Antonia, and who sub- 
sequently became the grandmother of the Emperor 
Nero. Shortly after this he took up his quarters at 
Athens, where he threw himself as keenly into the life of 
the Athenians as he had into that of the Alexandrians. 
He dressed himself in the Greek manner, with certain 
Oriental touches, and it was noticed that he ceased to 
take any interest in Roman affairs. He feasted sumptu- 
ously, drank heavily, spent a very great deal of money, 
and wasted any amount of time. The habits of the 
East appealed to him, and in his administration he 
adopted the methods sometimes practised by Greeks 
in the Orient. He abolished the Roman governorships 
in many of the provinces under his control, converting 
them into vassal kingdoms. Thus Herod was created 
King of Judea; Darius, son of Pharnaces, was made 
King of Pontus; Amyntas was raised to the throne of | 
Pisidia; Polemo was given the crown of Lycaonia, and 
soon. His rule was mild and kindly, though despotic; 
and on all sides he was hailed as the jolly god Dionysos, 
or Bacchus, come to earth. Like Julius Cesar, he was 
quite willing to accept divinity, and he even went so far 
as personally to take the place of the statue of Dionysos 
in the temple of that god, and to go through the mysti- 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 279 


eal ceremony of marriage to Athene at Athens. His 
popularity was immense, and this assumption of a god- 
head was received quite favourably by the Athenians; 
but when one of his generals, Ventidius Bassus, who had 
been sent to check the advance of the Parthians, re- 
turned with the news that he had completely defeated 
them, public enthusiasm knew no bounds, and Antony 
was féted and entertained in the most astonishing 
manner. 

The contrast between Antony’s benevolent govern- 
ment of his Eastern provinces and Octavian’s conduct 
in the West was striking. Octavian was a curious- 
tempered man, morose, quietly cruel, and _ secretly 
vicious. So many persons were tortured and crucified 
by him that he came to be known as the “ Executioner.”’ 
His manner was imperturbable and always controlled 
in public; but in private life at this time he indulged in 
the wildest debauches, gambled, and surrounded him- 
self with the lowest companions. His rule in Italy in 
these days constituted a Reign of Terror; and large 
numbers of the populace hated the very sight of him. 
His appearance was unimposing, for he was somewhat 
short and was careless in his deportment, while his face, 
though handsome, had certain very marked defects. 
His complexion was sallow and unhealthy, his skin being 
covered with spots, and his teeth were much decayed; 
but his eyes were large and remarkably brilliant, a fact 
of which he was peculiarly proud. He did not look well 
groomed or clean, and he was notably averse to taking 
a bath, though he did not object to an occasional 
steaming, or Turkish bath, as we should now call it. 


280 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


He was eccentric in his dress, though precise and correct 
in business affairs. He disliked the sunshine, and al- 
ways wore a broad-brimmed hat to protect his head 
from its brilliancy; but at the same time he detested 
cold weather, and in winter he is said to have worn a 
thick toga, at least four tunics, a shirt, and a flannel 
stomacher, while his legs and thighs were swathed in 
yards of warm cloth. In spite of this he was constantly 
suffering from colds in his head, and was always 
sneezing and snuffling. His liver, too, was generally 
out of order, a fact to which perhaps his ill-temper may 
be attributed. His clothes were all made at home by his 
wife and sister, and fitted him badly; and his light- 
brown, curly hair always looked unbrushed. He was a 
poor general, but an able statesman ; and his cold na- 
ture, which was lacking in all ardour as was his person- 
ality in all magnetism, caused him to be better fitted 
for the office than for the public platform. He was not 
what would now be called a gentleman; he was, indeed, 
very distinctly a parvenu. His grandfather had been a 
wealthy money-lender of bourgeois origin, and his 
father had raised himself by this ill-gotten wealth to 
a position in Roman society, and had married into 
Ceesar’s family. 

These facts were not calculated to give him much of 
a position in public esteem; and there was no question at 
this time that Antony was the popular hero, while 
Sextus Pompeius, the former outlaw, was fast rising in 
favour. In the spring of B.c. 38 Octavian decided to 
make war upon this roving son of the great Pompey, 
and he asked Antony to aid him in the undertaking. 





ase 


V atican Photograph by Anderson 
OCTAVIAN 


& 


® 





THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 281 


The latter made some attempt to prevent the war, but 
his efforts were not successful. In the following July, 
to the delight of a large number of Romans, Octavian 
was badly defeated by Sextus, and Cesar’s nephew 
thus lost a very considerable amount of prestige. At 
about the same time Antony’s reputation made an 
equally extensive gain, for in June, Ventidius Bassus, 
acting under Antony’s directions, again defeated the 
Parthians, Pacorus, the King’s son, being killed in the 
battle. The news stirred the Romans to wild enthusi- 
asm. At last, after sixteen years, Crassus* had been 
avenged; and Antony appeared to have put into execu- 
tion with the utmost ease the plans of the late Dictator 
in regard to the Parthians, while, on the other hand, 
Octavian, the Dictator’s nephew, had failed even to 
suppress the sea-roving Pompeians. A Triumph was 
decreed both for Antony and for Ventidius, and before 
the end of the year this took place. 

In January, B.c. 37, the Triumvirate, which had 
then expired, was renewed for a period of five years, in 
spite of a very considerable amount of friction between 
the happy-go-lucky Antony and the morose Octavian. 
At length these quarrels were patched up by means of 
an agreement whereby Antony gave Octavian 130 ships 
with which to fight Sextus Pompeius, and Octavian 
handed over some 21,000 legionaries to Antony for his 
Parthian war. In this agreement it will be observed 
that Antony, in order to obtain troops, sacrificed the 
man who had befriended his mother and who had as- 
sisted his cause against Octavian at a time when his 

t Page 63. 


282 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fortunes were at a low ebb; and it must be presumed, 
therefore, that his desire to conquer Parthia and to 
penetrate far into the Orient was now of such absorb- 
ing importance to him that all other considerations 
were abrogated by it. Antony, in fact, enthusiastically 
contemplating an enlarged Eastern empire, desired to 
have no part in the concerns of the West; and he cared 
not one jot what fate awaited his late ally, Sextus, who, 
he felt, was certain in any case ultimately to go down 
before Octavian. He was beginning, indeed, to trouble 
himself very little in regard to Octavian either; for he 
now seems to have thought that, when the Orient had 
been conquered and consolidated, he would probably 
be able to capture the Occident also from the cruel 
hands of his unpopular rival with little difficulty. Two 
years previously he had found it necessary to keep him- 
self on friendly terms with Octavian at all costs, and 
for this reason he had abandoned Cleopatra with brutal 
callousness. Now, however, his position was such that 
he was able to defy Cesar’s nephew, and the presenta- 
tion to him of the 130 ships was no more than a shrewd 
business deal, whereby he had obtained a new contin- 
gent of troops. One sees that his thoughts were turning 
once more towards the Queen of Egypt; and he seems at 
this time to have recalled to mind both the pleasure 
afforded him by her brilliant society and the importance 
to himself of the position which she held in eastern af- 
fairs. The Egyptian navy was large and well-equipped, 
and the deficiency in his own fleet due to his gift 
to Octavian might easily be made good by the 
queen. 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 283 


In the autumn of B.c. 37 these considerations bore 
their inevitable fruit. On his way to Corfu, in pursuit 
of his Parthian schemes, he came to the conclusion that 
he would once and for all cut himself off from Rome 
until that day when he should return to it as the earth’s 
conqueror. He therefore sent his wife Octavia back to 
Italy, determined never to see her again; and at the 
same time he despatched a certain Fonteius Capito to 
Alexandria to invite Cleopatra to meet him in Syria. 
Octavia was a woman of extreme sweetness, goodness 
and domesticity. Her gentle influence always made for 
peace; and her invariable good behaviour and meekness 
must have almost driven Antony crazy. No doubt she 
wanted to make his clothes for him, as she had made 
those of her brother; and she seems always to have 
been anxious to bring before his notice, in her sweet 
way, the charms of old-fashioned, respectable, family 
life, a condition which absolutely nauseated Antony. 
She now accepted her marching orders with a wifely 
meekness which can hardly command one’s respect; 
and in pathetic obedience she returned forthwith to 
Rome. I cannot help thinking that if only she had now 
shown some spirit, and had been able to substitute 
energy for sweetness in the movements of her mind, the 
history of the period would have been entirely altered. 

It must surely be clear to the impartial reader that 
Antony’s change of attitude was due more to political 
than to romantic considerations. We have heard so 
much of the arts of seduction practised by Cleopatra 
that it is not easy at first to rid the mind of the tradi- 


? Prof. Ferrero and others have already pointed this out. 


284 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


tional interpretation of this reunion; and we are, at the 
outset, inclined to accept Plutarch’s definition of the 
affair when he tells us that 


‘“Antony’s passion for Cleopatra, which better thoughts 
had seemed to have lulled and charmed into oblivion, now 
gathered strength again, and broke into flame; and like 
Plato’s restive and rebellious horse of the human soul, 
flinging off all good and wholesome counsel, and fairly break- 
ing loose, he sent Fonteius Capito to bring her into Syria.” 


But it is to be remembered that this “passion”’ for the 
queen had not been strong enough to hold him from 
marrying Octavia a few months after he had left the 
arms of Cleopatra; and now three and a half years had 
passed since he had seen the queen—a period which, to 
a memory so short as Antony’s, constituted a very com- 
plete hiatus in this particular love story. So slight, 
indeed, was his affection for her at this time that, in 
speaking of the twins with which she had presented him, 
he made the famous remark already quoted, that he 
had no intention of confining his hopes of progeny to 
any one woman, but, like his ancestor, Hercules, he 
hoped to let nature take her will with him, the best 
way of circulating noble blood through the world being 
thus personally to beget in every country a new line of 
kings. Antony doubtless looked forward with youth- 
ful excitement to a renewal of his relations with the 
queen, and, to some extent, it may be true that he now 
joyously broke loose from the gentle, and, for that 
reason, galling bonds of domesticity; but actually he 
purposed, for political reasons, to make a definite alli- 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 285 


ance with Cleopatra, and it is unreasonable to suppose 
that any flames of ungoverned passion burnt within his 
jolly heart at this time. 

On Cleopatra’s side the case was somewhat different. 
The stress of bitter experience had knocked out of her 
all that harum-scarum attitude towards life which had 
been her marked characteristic in earlier years; and 
she was no longer able to play with her fortune nor to 
romp through her days as formerly she had done. 
Antony, whom in her way she had loved, had cruelly 
deserted her, and now was asking for a renewal of her 
favours. Could she believe (for no doubt such was his 
excuse) that his long absence from her and his marriage 
to another woman were purely political manoeuvres 
which had in no way interfered with the continuity of 
his love for her? Could she put her trust in him this 
second time? Could she, on the other hand, manage 
her complicated affairs without him? Evidently he 
was now omnipotent in the East; Parthia was likely to 
go down before him; and Octavian’s sombre figure was 
already almost entirely eclipsed by this new Dionysos, 
save only in little Italy itself. Would there be any hope 
of enlarging her dominions, or even of retaining those 
she already possessed, without his assistance? Such 
questions could only have one solution. She must come 
to an absolutely definite understanding with Antony, 
and must make a binding agreement with him. In a 
word, if there was to be any renewal of their relation- 
ship, he must marry her. There must be no more 
diplomatic manceuvring, which, to her, meant desertion, 
_mnisery, and painful anxiety. He must become the open 


286 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


enemy of Octavian, and, with her help, must aim at the 
conquest both of the limitless East and of the entire 
West. He must act in all things as the successor of the 
divine Julius Cesar, and the heir to their joint power 
must be Cesar’s son, the little Ceesarion now a growing 
boy of over ten years of age. 

With this determination fixed in her mind, she ac- 
cepted the invitation presented to her by Fonteius 
Capito, and set sail for Syria. A few weeks later, 
towards the end of the year B.c. 37, she met Antony in 
the city of Antioch; and at once she set herself to the 
execution of her decision. History does not tell us what 
passed between them at their first interviews; but it 
may be supposed that Antony excused his previous con- 
duct on political grounds, and made it clear to the 
queen that he now desired a definite and lasting alliance 
with her; while Cleopatra, on her part, intimated her 
willmgness to unite herself with him, provided that 
the contract was made legal and binding on both sides. 

The fact that she obtained Antony’s consent to an 
agreement which was in every way to her advantage, 
not only shows what a high value was set by Antony 
upon Egypt’s friendship at this time, but it also proves 
how great were her powers of persuasion. It must be 
remembered that Cleopatra had been for over three years 
a wronged woman, deserted by her lover, despairing of 
ever obtaining the recognition of her son’s claims upon 
Rome, and almost hopeless even of retaining the inde- 
pendence of Egypt. Now she had the pluck to demand 
from him all manner of increased rights and privileges 
and the confirmation of all her dynastic hopes; and, to 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 287 


her great joy, Antony was willing to accede to her 
wishes. I have already shown that he did not really 
love her with a passion so deep that his sober judgment 
was obscured thereby, and the agreement is therefore 
to be attributed more to the queen’s shrewd bargain- 
ing, and to her very understandable anxiety not to be 
duped once more by her fickle lover. She must have 
worked upon Antony’s feelings by telling him of her 
genuine distress; and at the same time she must warmly 
have confirmed his estimate of Egypt’s importance to 
him at this juncture. 

The terms of the agreement appear to me to have 
been as follows: 

Firstly, it seems to have been arranged that a legal 
marriage should be contracted between them accord- 
ing to Egyptian custom. We have already seen how, 
years previously, Julius Cesar had countenanced a law 
designed to legalise his proposed marriage with Cleo- 
patra, by the terms of which he would have been able to 
marry more than one wife;* and Antony now seems to 
have based his attitude upon a somewhat similar under- 
standing. The marriage would not be announced to 
the Senate in Rome, since he intended no longer to re- 
gard himself as subject to the old Roman Law in these 
matters; but in Egypt it would be accepted as a legal 
and terrestrial confirmation of the so-called celestial 
union of B.c. 40. 

Secondly, it was agreed that Antony should not as- 
sume the title of King of Egypt, but should call him- 
self Autocrator—t.e., “‘absolute ruler,’ of the entire 

3 Page 171. 


288 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


East. The word avroxparwp was a fair Greek equiva- 
lent of the Roman Imperator, a title which, it will be 
remembered, was made hereditary in Julius Czesar’s 
behalf, and which was probably intended by him to ob- 
tain its subsequent significance of “Emperor.” Antony 
would not adopt the title of Baoeds or rex, which 
was always objectionable to Roman ears; nor was the 
word Imperator quite distinguished enough, since it 
was held by all commanders-in-chief of Roman armies. 
But the title Autocrator was significant of omnipotence; 
and it is to be noted that from this time onwards every 
“Pharaoh” of Egypt was called by that name, which 
in hieroglyphs reads Auwi’k’r’d’r. Antony also retained 
for the time being his title of Triumvir. 

Thirdly, Antony probably promised to regard 
Ceesarion, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Ceesar, as the 
rightful heir to the throne;+ and he agreed to give his 
own children by the queen the minor kingdoms within 
their empire. 

Fourthly, Antony appears to have promised to in- 
crease the extent of Egyptian power to that which 
existed fourteen hundred years previously, in the days 
of the mighty Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty. He 
therefore gave to the queen Sinai; Arabia, including 
probably the rock city of Petra; the east coast of the 
Dead Sea; part of the valley of the Jordan and the City 
of Jericho; perhaps a portion of Samaria and Galilee; 
the Phoenician coast, with the exception of the free 
cities of Tyre and Sidon; the Lebanon; probably the 
north coast of Syria; part of Cilicia, perhaps including 

4 See pp. 210, 211, 313, 327. 








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THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 289 


Tarsus; the island of Cyprus; and a part of Crete. The 
Kingdom of Judea, ruled by Herod, was thus enclosed 
within Cleopatra’s dominions; but the deduction of this 
valuable land from the Egyptian sphere was compen- 
sated by the addition of the Cilician territory, which 
had always lain beyond Egypt’s frontiers, even in the 
days of the great Pharaohs. 

Lastly, in return for these gifts, Cleopatra must have 
undertaken to place all the financial and military re- 
sources of Egypt at Antony’s disposal whenever he 
should need them. 

As soon as this agreement was made I think there 
can be little doubt that Cleopatra and Antony were 
quietly married;s and in celebration of the event 
coins were struck, showing their two heads, and in- 
scribed with both their names, she being called Queen 
and he Autocrator. In honour of the occasion, more- 
over, Cleopatra began a new dating of the years of her 
reign; and on acoin minted six years later, the heads of 
Antony and the queen are shown with the inscription, 
“In the reign of Queen Cleopatra, in the 21st, which is 
also the 6th year of the goddess.’ It will be remem- 
bered that Cleopatra came to the throne in the summer 
of B.c. 51, and therefore the 21st year of her reign would 
begin after the summer of B.c. 31, which period would 
also be the 6th year dating from this alliance at Antioch 
at the end of B.c. 37. Thus these coins must have been 
struck in the autumn of B.c. 31, at which time the begin- 
ning of the 21st year of Cleopatra’s reign as Queen of 


5 The suggestion that an actual marriage took place was first made by 
Letronne, was confirmed by Kromayer, and was accepted by Ferrero. 


290 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Egypt coincided with the end of the 6th year of her 
reign with Antony. There are, of course, many argu- 
ments to be advanced against the theory that she was 
now definitely married; but in view of the facts that 
their two heads now appear on the coins, that Antony 
now settled upon her this vast estate, that she began a 
new dating to her reign, that Antony henceforth lived 
with her, and that, as we know from his letter to 
Octavian, * he spoke of her afterwards as his wife, I do 
not think that there is any good reason for postponing 
the wedding until a later period. 

The winter was spent quietly at Antioch, Antony 
being busily engaged in preparations for his new Par- 
thian campaign which was to bring him, he hoped, such 
enormous prestige and popularity in the Roman world. 
The city was the metropolis of Syria, and at this time 
must already have been recognised as the third city of 
the world, ranking immediately below Rome and Alex- 
andria. The residential quarter, called Daphnz, was 
covered with thick groves of laurels and cypresses for 
ten miles around, and a thousand little streams ran 
down from the hills and passed under the shade of the 
trees where, even in the height of summer, it was 
always cool. The city was famous for its art and 
learning, and was a centre eminently suited to Cleo- 
patra’s tastes. The months passed by without much 
event. The queen is said to have tried to persuade 
Antony to dethrone Herod and to add Judea to 
her new dominions, but this he would not do, and he 
begged her not to meddle with Herod’s affairs, a cor- 


: Page 320. 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 291 


rection which she at once accepted, thereafter acting 
with great cordiality to the Jewish king. 

In March B.c. 26, Antony set out for the war, Cleo- 
patra accompanying him as far as Zeugma, a town on 
the Euphrates, near the Armenian frontier, a march of 
about 150 miles from Antioch. It is probable that she 
wished to go through the whole campaign by his side, 
for, at a later date, we find her again attempting 
to remain by him under similar circumstances; but 
at Zeugma a discovery seems to have been made in re- 
gard to her condition which necessitated her going back 
to Egypt, there to await his triumphant return. In spite 
of the anxieties and disappointments of her life, the 
queen had retained her energy and pluck in a marked 
degree, and she was now no less hardy and daring than 
she had been in the days when Julius Cesar had found 
her invading Egypt at the head of her Syrian army. 
She enjoyed the open life of a campaign, and she took 
pleasure in the dangers which had to be faced. An 
ancient writer, Florus, has described her, as we have 
already noticed, as being “‘free from all womanly fear,” 
and this attempt to go to the wars with her husband is 
an indication that the audacity and dash so often no- 
ticeable in her actions had not been impaired by her 
misfortunes. She does not appear to have been alto- 
gether in favour of the expedition, for it seemed a risky 
undertaking, and one which would cost her a great deal 
of money, but the adventure of it appealed to her, and 
added that quality of excitement to her days which 
seems to have been so necessary to her existence. 
Antony, however, fond as he was of her, could not have 


992 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA | 


appreciated the honour of her company at such a time; 
and he must have been not a little relieved when he saw 
her retreating cavalcade disappear along the road to 
Antioch. 

From Antioch Cleopatra made her way up the val- 
ley of the Orontes to Apamea, whence she travelled 
past Arethusa and Emesa to the Anti-Lebanon, and so 
to Damascus. From here she seems to have crossed to 
the Sea of Galilee, and thence along the river Jordan te 
Jericho. Hereabouts she was met by the handsome and 
adventurous Herod, who came to her in order that 
they might arrive at some agreement in regard to the 
portions of Judea which Antony had given to her; and, 
after some bargaining, it was finally decided that Herod 
should rent these territories from her for a certain sum 
of money. Jericho’s tropical climate produced great 
abundance of palms, henna, sometimes known as cam- 
phire, myrobalan or zukktim, and balsam, the “balm of 
Gilead,” so much prized as perfume and for medicinal 
purposes. Josephus speaks of Jericho as a “divine 
region,’ and strategically it was the key of Palestine. 
It may be understood, therefore, how annoying it must 
have been to Herod to be dispossessed of this jewel of 
his crown; and it is said that, after he had rented it from 
Cleopatra, it became his favourite place of residence. 
The transaction being settled, the queen seems to have 
continued her journey to Egypt, at the Jewish king’s 
invitation, by way of Jerusalem and Gaza—that is to 
say, across the kingdom of Judea; but no sooner had 
she set her foot on Jewish territory than Herod con- 
ceived the plan of seizing her and putting her to death. 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 293 


The road from Jericho to Jerusalem ascends the steep 
wild mountain-side, and zigzags upwards through 
rugged and bare scenery. It would have been a simple 
matter to ambush the queen in one of the desolate 
ravines through which she had to pass, and the blame 
might be placed with the brigands who infested these 
regions. He pointed out to his advisers, as Josephus 
tells us, that Cleopatra, by reason of her enormous in- 
fluence upon the affairs of Rome, had become a menace 
to all minor sovereigns; and now that he had her in his 
power he could, with the greatest ease, rid the world of 
a woman who had become irksome to them all, and 
thereby deliver them from a very multitude of evils and 
misfortunes. He told them that Cleopatra was actu- 
ally turning her beautiful eyes upon himself, and he 
doubted not but that she would make an attempt upon 
his virtue before he had got her across his southern fron- 
tier. He argued that Antony would in the long run come 
to thank him for her murder; for it was apparent that 
she would never be a faithful friend to him, but would 
desert him at the moment when he should most stand 
in need of her fidelity. The councillors, however, were 
appalled at the king’s proposal, and implored him not 
to put it into execution. 

“They laid hard at him,” says the naif Josephus, “‘and 
begged him to undertake nothing rashly; for that Antony 
would never bear it, no, not though any one should lay 
evidently before his eyes that it was for his own advan- 
tage. This woman was of the supremest dignity of any 
of her sex at that time in the world; and such an undertaking 


would appear to deserve condemnation on account of the 
insolence Herod must take upon himself in doing it.”’ 


294 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The Jewish king, therefore, giving up his treacher- 
ous scheme, politely escorted Cleopatra to the frontier 
fortress of Pelusium, and thus she came unscathed to 
Alexandria, where she settled down to await the birth 
of her fourth child. It is perhaps worth noting that 
she is said to have brought back to Egypt from Jericho 
many cuttings of the balsam shrubs, and planted them 
at Heliopolis, near the modern Cairo.7 The queen’s 
mind must now have been full of optimism. Antony 
had collected an enormous army, and already, she sup- 
posed, he must have penetrated far into Parthia. In 
spite of her previous fears, she now expected that he 
would return to her covered with glory, having opened 
the road through Persia to India and the fabulous East. 
Rome would hail him as their hero and idol, and the un- 
popular Octavian would sink into insignificance. Then 
he would claim for himself and for her the throne of the 
West as well as that of the Orient, and at last her little 
son Ceesarion, as their heir, would come into his own. 

With such hopes as these to support her, Cleopatra 
passed through her time of waiting; and in the late 
autumn she gave birth to a boy, whom she named 
Ptolemy, according to the custom of her house. But 
ere she had yet fully recovered her strength, she re- 
ceived despatches from Antony ‘breaking to her 
the appalling news that his campaign had been a 
disastrous failure, and that he had reached northern 
Syria with only a remnant of his grand army, clad in 
rags, emaciated by hunger and illness, and totally lack- 
ing in funds. He implored her to come to his aid, and 


’ Brocardus: Descriptio Terre Sancte, xiii. 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 295 


to bring him money wherewith to pay his disheartened 
soldiers, and he told her that he would await her coming 
upon the Syrian coast somewhere between Sidon and 
Berytus. 

Once more the unfortunate queen’s hopes were 
dashed to the ground; but, pluckily rising to the occa- 
sion, she collected money, clothes, and munitions of 
war, and set out with all possible speed to her husband’s 
relief. 

The history of the disaster is soon told. From 
Zeugma Antony had marched to the plateau of Er- 
zeroum, where he had reviewed his enormous army, con- 
sisting of 60,000 Roman foot (including Spaniards and 
Gauls), 10,000 Roman horse, and some 30,000 troops 
of other nationalities, including 13,000 horse and foot 
supplied by Artavasdes, King of Armenia, and a strong 
force provided by King Polemo of Pontus. An im- 
mense number of heavy engines of war had been col- 
lected; and these were despatched towards Media along 
the valley of the Araxes, together with the contingents 
from Armenia and Pontus and two Roman legions. 
Antony himself, with the main army, marched by a 
more direct route across northern Assyria into Media, 
being impatient to attack the enemy. The news of his 
approach in such force, says Plutarch, not only alarmed 
the Parthians, but filled North India with fear, and in- 
deed, made all Asia shake. It was generally supposed 
that he would march in triumph through Persia; and 
there must have been considerable talk as to whether he 
would carry his arms, like Alexander the Great, into 
India, where Cleopatra’s ships, coming across the high 


296 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


sea trade-route from Egypt, would meet him with 
money and supplies. Towards the end of August, 
Antony reached the city of Phraaspa, the capital of 
Media-Atropatene, and there he awaited the arrival of 
his siege-train and its accompanying contingent. He 
had expected that the city would speedily surrender, 
but in this he was mistaken; and, ere he had settled 
down to the business of a protracted siege, he received 
the news that his second army had been attacked and 
defeated, that his entire siege-train had been captured, 
that the King of Armenia had fled with the remnant of 
his forces back to his own country, and that the King 
of Pontus had been taken prisoner. In spite of this 
crushing loss, however, Antony bravely determined 
to continue the siege; but soon the arrival of the 
Parthian army, fresh from its victory, began to cause 
him great discomfort, and his lines were constantly 
harassed from the outside by bodies of the famous 
Parthian cavalry, though not once did the enemy allow 
a general battle to take place. At last, in October, he 
was obliged to open negotiations with the enemy; for, 
in view of the general lack of provisions, and the deep 
despondency of the troops, the approach of winter 
could not be contemplated without the utmost dread. 
He therefore sent a message to the Parthian King 
stating that if the prisoners captured from Crassus 
were handed over, together with the lost eagles, he 
would raise the siege and depart. The enemy refused 
these terms, but declared that if Antony would retire, 
his retreat would not be molested; and to this the 
Romans agreed. The Parthians, however, did not keep 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 297 


their word; and as the weary legionaries crossed the 
snow-covered mountains they were attacked again and 
again by the fierce tribesmen, who ambushed them at 
every pass, and followed in their rear to cut off strag- 
glers. ‘The intense cold, the lack of food, and the 
extreme weariness of the troops, caused the number of 
these stragglers to be very great; and besides the thou- 
sands of men who were thus cut off or killed in the 
daily fighting, a great number perished from exposure 
and want of food. At one period so great was the 
scarcity of provisions that a loaf of bread was worth 
its weight in silver; and it was at this time that 
large numbers of men, having devoured a certain root 
which seemed to be edible, went mad and died. ‘‘He 
that had eaten of this root,” says Plutarch, “‘remem- 
bered nothing in the world, and employed himself only 
in moving great stones from one place to another, which 
he did with as much earnestness and industry as if it 
had been a business of the greatest consequence; and 
thus through all the camp there was nothing to be 
seen but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, 
which they carried from place to place, until in the 
end they vomited and died.’ This account, though 
of course exaggerated and confused, gives a vivid pic- 
ture of the distressed legionaries some dying of this 
poison, some going mad, some perishing from exposure 
and vainly endeavouring to build themselves a shelter 
from the biting wind. 

All through the long and terrible march, Antony 
behaved with consummate bravery and endurance. 
He shared every hardship with his men, and when the 


298 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


camp was pitched at night he went from tent to tent. 
talking to the legionaries, and cheering them with en- 
couraging words. His sympathy and concern for the 
wounded was that of the tenderest woman; and he 
would throw himself down beside sufferers and burst 
into uncontrolled tears. The men adored him; and 
even those who were at the point of death, arousing 
themselves in his presence, called him by every re- 
spectful and endearing name. “They seized his hands,” 
says Plutarch, “with joyful faces, bidding him go and 
see to himself and not be concerned about them; calling 
him their Emperor and their General, and saying that 
if only he were well they were safe.” Many times 
Antony was heard to exclaim, “Oh, the ten thousand!” 
as though in admiration for Xenophon’s famous re- 
treat, which was even more arduous than his own. On 
one occasion so serious was the situation that he made 
one of his slaves, named Rhamnus, take an oath that in 
the event of a general massacre he would run his sword 
through his body, and cut off his head, in order that he 
might neither be captured alive nor be recognised when 
dead. 

At last, after twenty-seven terrible days, during 
which they had beaten off the Parthians no less than 
eighteen times, they crossed the Araxes and brought the 
_ eagles safely into Armenia. Here, making a review of 
the army Antony found that he had lost 20,000 foot and 
40,000 horse, the majority of which had died of exposure 
and illness. Their troubles, however, were by no means 
at an end; for although the enemy had now been left 
behind, the snows of winter had still to be faced, and 


THE ALLIANCE RENEWED 299 


the march through Armenia into Syria was fraught with 
difficulties. By the time that the coast was reached 
eight thousand more men had perished; and the army 
which finally went into winter quarters at a place known 
as the White Village, between Sidon and Berytus, was 
but the tattered remnant of the great host which had 
set out so bravely in the previous spring. Yet it may 
be said that had not Antony proved himself so dauntless 
a leader, not one man would have escaped from those 
terrible mountains, but all would have shared the doom 
of Crassus and his ill-fated expedition. 

At the White Village, Antony eagerly awaited the 
coming of Cleopatra; yet so ashamed was he at his 
failure, and so unhappy at the thought of her reproaches 
for his ill-success, that he turned in despair to the false 
comfort of the wine-jar, and daily drank himself into a 
state of oblivious intoxication. When not in a condition 
of coma, he was nervous and restless. He could not en- 
dure the tediousness of a long meal, but would start up 
from table and run down to the sea-shore to scan the 
horizon for a sight of her sails. Both he and his officers 
were haggard and unkempt, his men being clad in rags; 
and it was in this condition that Cleopatra found them 
when at last her fleet sailed into the bay, bringing 
clothing, provisions, and money. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE PREPARATIONS OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY FOR THE 
OVERTHROW OF OCTAVIAN 


WHEN Cleopatra carried Antony back to Alexandria 
to recuperate after his exertions, it seems to me that 
she spoke to him very directly in regard to his future 
plans. She seems to have pointed out to him that 
Roman attempts to conquer Parthia always ended 
in failure, and that it was a sheer waste of money, 
men, and time to endeavour to obtain possession of a 
country so vast and having such limitless resources. 
Wars of this kind exhausted their funds and gave them 
nothing in return. Would it not be much better, 
therefore, at once to concentrate all their energies upon 
the overthrow of Octavian and the capture of Rome? 
Antony had proved his popularity with his men and 
their confidence in him and his powers as a leader, for 
he had performed with ultimate success that most 
difficult feat of generalship—an orderly retreat. Surely, 
therefore, it would be wise to expend no further portion 
of their not unlimited means upon their Eastern 
schemes but to concentrate their full attention upon 


Italy. The Parthians, after all, had been turned out of 
300 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 301 


Armenia and Syria, and they might now be left severely 
alone within their own country until that day when 
Antony would march against them, in accordance with 
the prophecies of the Sibylline Books, as King of Rome. 
Cleopatra had never favoured the Parthian expedition, 
though she had helped finance it as being part of Julius 
Ceesar’s original design; and she had accepted as reason- 
able the argument put forward by Antony, that if suc- 
cessful it would enhance enormously his prestige and 
ensure his acceptance as a popular heroin Rome. The 
war, however, had been disastrous, and it would be 
better now to abandon the whole scheme than to risk 
a further catastrophe. Antony, fagged out and suffer- 
ing from the effects of his severe drinking-bout, appears 
to have acquiesced in these arguments; and it seems that 
he arrived in Alexandria with the intention of recuperat- 
ing his resources for a year or two in view of his coming 
quarrel with Octavian. In Syria he had received news 
of the events which had occurred in Rome during his 
absence at the wars. Octavian had at last defeated 
Sextus Pompeius, who had fled to Mytilene; and 
Lepidus, the third Triumvir, had retired into private 
life, leaving his province of Africa in Octavian’s hands. 
His rival, therefore, now held the West in complete 
subjection, and it was not unlikely that he himself 
would presently pick a quarrel with Antony. 

The comforts of the Alexandrian Palace, and the 
pleasures of Cleopatra’s brilliant society, must have 
come to Antony as an entrancing change after the 
rigours of his campaign; and the remainder of the win- 
ter, no doubt, slipped by in happy ease. The stern 


302 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


affairs of life, however, seem to have checked any re- 
petition of the frivolities of his earlier stay in the 
Egyptian capital; and we now hear nothing of the In- 
imitable Livers or of their prodigious entertainments. 
Antony wrote a long letter to Rome, giving a more or 
less glowing account of the war, and stating that in 
many respects it had been very successful. Early in the 
new year, B.c. 35, Sextus Pompeius attempted to open 
negotiations with the Egyptian court; but the envoys 
whom he sent to Alexandria failed to secure any fa- 
vourable response. Antony, on the other hand, learnt 
from them that Sextus was engaged in a secret corre- 
spondence with the Parthians, and was attempting to 
corrupt Domitius Ahenobarbus, his lieutenant in Asia. 
Thereupon he and Cleopatra determined to capture 
this buccaneering son of the great Pompey and to put 
him to death. The order was carried out by a certain 
Titius, who effected the arrest in Phrygia; and Sextus 
was executed in Miletus shortly afterwards. This ac- 
tion was likely to be extremely ill received in Rome, for 
the outlaw, in the manner of a Robin Hood, had always 
been immensely popular; and for this reason Antony 
never seems to have admitted his responsibility for it, 
the order being generally said to have been signed by 
his lieutenant, Plancus. 

Shortly after this, the whole course of events was 
suddenly altered by the arrival in Alexandria of no less a 
personage than the King of Pontus, who, it will be re- 
membered, had been captured by the Parthians: at 
the outset of Antony’s late campaign, and had been 

* Page 296. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 303 


held prisoner by the King of Media. The latter now 
sent him to Egypt with the news that the lately allied 
kingdoms of Media and Parthia had come to blows, 
and the King of Media proposed that Antony should 
help him to overthrow his rival. This announce- 
ment caused the greatest upheaval in Cleopatra’s 
Palace. Here was an unexpected opportunity to con- 
quer the terrible Parthians with comparative ease; for 
Media had always been their powerful ally, and the 
Roman arms had come to grief on former occasions in 
Median territory. Cleopatra, however, fearing the 
duplicity of these Eastern monarchs, and having set 
her heart on the immediate overthrow of Octavian, 
whose power was now so distinctly on the increase, tried 
to dissuade her husband from this second campaign, 
and begged him to take no further risks in that direc- 
tion. As a tentative measure Antony sent a despatch 
to Artavasdes, the King of Armenia, who had deserted 
him after his defeat in Media, ordering him to come to 
Alexandria without delay, presumably to discuss the 
situation. Artavasdes, however, showed no desire to 
place himself in the hands of his overlord whom he had 
thus betrayed, and preferred to seek safety, if neces- 
sary, in his own hills or to throw in his lot with the 
Parthians. 

Antony was deaf to Cleopatra’s advice; and at 
| length accepting the proposal conveyed by the King of 
Pontus, he prepared to set out at once for the north-~ 
east. Thereupon Cleopatra made up her mind to ac- 
company him; and in the late spring they set out 
together for Syria. No sooner had they arrived in that 


304 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


country, however, than Antony received the discon- 
certing news that his Roman wife, Octavia, was on her 
way to join him once more, and proposed to meet him 
in Greece. It appears that her brother Octavian had 
chosen this means of bringing his quarrel with Antony 
to an issue; for if she were not well received he would 
have just cause for denouncing her errant husband as a 
deserter; and in order to show how justly he himself was 
dealing he despatched with Octavia two thousand 
legionaries and some munitions of war. As a matter of 
fact, the legionaries served actually as a bodyguard for 
Octavia,? while their ultimate presentation to Antony 
was to be regarded partly as a payment for the number 
of his ships which had been destroyed in Octavian’s 
war against Sextus, and partly as a sort of formal pres- 
ent from one autocrat to another. Antony at once sent 
a letter to Octavia telling her to remain at Athens, as 
he was going to Media; and in reply to this Octavia 
despatched a family friend, named Niger, to ask 
Antony what she should do with the troops and sup- 
plies. Niger had the hardihood to speak openly in 
regard to Octavia’s treatment, and to praise her very 
highly for her noble and quiet bearing in her great dis- 
tress; but Antony was in no mood to listen to him, and 
sent him about his business with no satisfactory reply. 
At the same time he appears to have been very sorry 
for Octavia, and there can be little doubt that, had such 
a thing been possible, he would have liked to see her for 
a short time, if only to save her from the added insult 


2 Fulvia, it will be remembered (page 274), employed 3000 cavalry as a 
body-guard under similar circumstances. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 305 


of his present attitude. He was an irresponsible boy 
in these matters, and so long as everybody was happy 
he really did not care very deeply which woman he lived 
with, though he was now, it would seem, extremely de- 
voted to Cleopatra, and very dependent upon her lively 
society. 

The queen, of course, was considerably alarmed by 
this new development, for she could not be sure whether 
Antony would stand by the solemn compact he had 
made with her at Antioch, or whether he would once 
more prove a fickle friend. She realised very clearly 
that the insult offered to Octavia would precipitate 
the war between East and West, and she seems to 
have felt even more strongly than before that Antony 
would be ill advised at this critical juncture to enter 
into any further Parthian complication. To her mind 
it was absolutely essential that she should carry him 
safely back to Alexandria, where he would be, on the 
one hand, well out of reach of Octavia, and, on the other, 
far removed from the temptation of pursuing his 
Oriental schemes. Antony, however, was as eager to be 
at his old enemy once more as a beaten boy might have 
been to revenge himself upon his rival; and the thought 
of giving up this opportunity for vengeance in order to 
prepare for an immediate fight with Octavian was ex- 
tremely distasteful to him. Everything now seemed to 
be favourable for a successful invasion of Parthia. Not 
only had he the support of the King of Media, but the 
fickle King of Armenia had thought it wise at the last 
moment to make his peace with Antony, and the new 
agreement was to be sealed by the betrothal of his 


306 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


daughter to Antony’s little son, Alexander Helios. 
Cleopatra, however, did not care so much about the 
conquest of Parthia as she did for the overthrow of her 
son’s rival, who seemed to have usurped the estate which 
ought to have passed from the great Ceesar to Czesarion 
and herself; and she endeavoured now, with every art 
at her disposal, to prevent Antony taking any further 
risk in the East, and to urge his return to Alexandria. 


‘She feigned to be dying of love for Antony,” says 
Plutarch, “‘bringing her body down by slender diet. When 
he entered the room she fixed her eyes upon him in adoration, 
and when he left she seemed to languish and half faint away. 
She took great pains that he should see her in tears, and, 
as soon as he noticed it, she hastily dried them and turned 
away, as if it were her wish that he should know nothing 
of it. Meanwhile, Cleopatra’s agents were not slow to 
forward her design, upbraiding Antony with his unfeeling, 
hard-hearted nature for thus letting a woman perish whose 
soul depended upon him and him alone. Octavia, it was 
true, was his wife; but Cleopatra, the sovereign queen 
of many nations, had been contented with the name of his 
mistress,? and if she were bereaved of him she would not 
survive the loss.” 


In this manner she prevailed upon him at last to 
give up the proposed war; nor must we censure her too 
severely for her piece of acting. She was playing a 
desperate game at this time. She had persuaded An- 
tony to turn his back upon Octavia in a manner which 
could but be final; and yet immediately after this, 
as though oblivious to the consequences of his action, 


3 This passage is sometimes quoted to show that no definite marriage had 
taken place at Antioch; but it only indicates that the marriage to Cleopatra 
was not accepted as legal in Rome. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 307 


he was eager to go off to Persia at a time when 
Octavian would probably attempt to declare him an 
enemy ef the Roman people. Of course, in reality, 
the queen was no more deeply in love with Antony than 
he with her; but he was absolutely essential to the 
realisation of her hopes, and the necessity of a speedy 
trial of strength with Octavian became daily more 
urgent. For this he must prepare by a quiet collecting 
of funds and munitions, and all other projects must be 
given up. 

Very reluctantly, therefore, Antony returned to 
Alexandria, and there he spent the winter of B.c. 35-34 
in soberly governing his vast possessions. In the fol- 
lowing spring, however, he determined to secure 
Armenia and Media for his own ends; and when he 
transferred his headquarters to Syria for the summer 
season‘ he again sent word to King Artavasdes to meet 
him in order to discuss the affairs of Parthia. The 
Armenian king, however, seems to have been intriguing 
against Antony during the winter; and now he declined 
to place himself in Roman hands lest he might suffer 
the consequence of his duplicity. Thereupon Antony 
advanced rapidly into Armenia, took the king prisoner, 
seized his treasure, pillaged his lands, and declared the 
country to be henceforth a Roman province. The 
loot obtained in this rapid campaign was very great. 
The legionaries seized upon every object of value which 


4 For the governing of his Eastern empire, Antony found it convenient to 
make his headquarters at Alexandria during the winter and Syria during the 
summer, and his movements to and fro were not due to pressing circumstances. 
The whole Court moved with him, just as, for example, at the present day the 
Viceregal Court of India moves to Simla. Thutmosis III and other great 
Pharaohs of Egypt had gone over to Syria in the summer in this manner. 


308 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


they observed; and they even plundered the ancient 
temple of Anaitis in Acilisene, laying hands on the 
statue of the goddess which was made of pure gold, and 
pounding it into pieces for purposes of division. 

On his return to Syria, Antony entered into nego- 
tiations with the King of Media, the result of which 
was that the Median Princess Iotapa was married 
to the little Alexander Helios, whose betrothal to 
the King of Armenia’s daughter had, of course, ter- 
minated with the late war. As we shall presently see, 
it is probable that the King of Media had consented to 
make the youthful couple his heirs to the throne of 
Media, for it would seem that he had no son; and 
thus Antony is seen to have once more put into 
practice his jesting scheme of founding royal dynasties 
of his own flesh and blood in many lands. Antony 
then returned to Alexandria, well satisfied with his 
summer’s work, but “with his thoughts,” as Plutarch 
says, ““now taken up with the coming civil war.” Octa- 
via had returned to Rome, and had made no secret of 
her ill-treatment. Her brother, therefore, told her to 
leave Antony’s house, thus to show her resentment 
against him; but she would not do this, nor did she per- 
mit Octavian to make war upon her husband on her 
account, for she declared, it would be intolerable to 
have it said that two women, herself and Cleopatra 
had been the cause of such a terrific contest. Never- 
theless, there was little chance of the quarrel being 
patched up; and Antony must have realised now the 
wisdom of Cleopatra’s objection to an expensive and 
exhausting campaign in Parthia. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 309 


On his return to Alexandria in the autumn of B.c. 34, 
Antony set the Roman world agog by celebrating his 
triumph over Armenia in the Egyptian capital. _ Never 
before had a Roman General held a formal Triumph 
outside Rome; and Antony’s action appeared to be a 
definite proclamation that Alexandria had become the 
rival, if not the successor, of Rome as the capital of the 
world. It will be remembered that Julius Cesar had 
talked of removing the seat of government from Rome 
to Alexandria; and now it seemed that Antony had 
transferred the capital, at any rate of the Eastern 
empire, to that city, and was regarding it as his 
home. Alexandria was certainly far more conveniently 
situated than Rome for the government of the world. 
It must be remembered that the barbaric western 
countries—the unexplored Germania, the newly con- 
quered Gallia, the insignificant Britannia, the wild 
Hispania, and others—were not of nearly such value as 
were the civilised eastern provinces; and thus Rome 
stood on the far western outskirts of the important 
dominions she governed. From Alexandria, a march of 
600 or 800 miles brought one to Antioch or to Tarsus; 
whereas Rome was nearly three times as far from these 
great centres. The southern Peloponnesus was, by way 
of Crete, considerably nearer to Alexandria than it was 
to Rome by way of Brundisium. Ephesus and other 
cities of Asia Minor could be reached more quickly by 
land or sea from Egypt than they could from Rome. 
Rhodes, Lycia, Bithynia, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, 
Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, Commagene, Crete, 
Cyprus, and many other great and important lands, 


310 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


were all closer to Alexandria than to Rome; while 
Thrace and Byzantium, by the land or sea route, were 
about equidistant from either capital. As a city, too, 
Alexandria was far more magnificent, more cultivated, 
more healthy, more wealthy in trade, and more “go- 
ahead” than Rome. Thus there was really very good 
ground for supposing that Antony, by holding his 
Triumph here, was proclaiming a definite transference 
of his home and of the seat of government; and one may 
imagine the anxiety which it caused in Italy. 

The Triumph was a particularly gorgeous cere- 
mony. At the head of the procession there seems to 
have marched a body of Roman legionaries, whose 
shields were inscribed with the large C which is said to 
have stood for “Cleopatra,” but which, with equal 
probability, may have stood for “Cesar,” that is to 
say, for the legitimate Cesarian cause. Antony rode 
in the customary chariot drawn by four white horses 


and before him walked the unfortunate King Artavasdes | 


loaded with golden chains, together with his queen and 
their sons. Behind the chariot walked a long procession 
of Armenian captives, and after these came the usual 
cars loaded with spoils of war. Then followed a num- 
ber of municipal deputations drawn from vassal cities 
each carrying a golden crown or chaplet which had been 
voted to Antony in commemoration of his conquest. 
Roman legionaries, Egyptian troops, and several East- 
ern contingents, brought up the rear. 

The procession seems to have set out in the sunshine 
of the morning from the royal Palace on the Lochias 
Promontory, and to have skirted the harbour as far as 


_~ — 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 311 


the temple of Neptune. It then travelled probably 
through the Forum, past the stately buildings and 
luxuriant gardens of the Regia, and so out into the 
Street of Canopus at about the point where the great 
mound of the Paneum rose up against the blue sky, its 
ascending pathway packed with spectators. Turning 
now to the west, the procession moved slowly along this 
broad, paved street, the colonnades on either side being 
massed with sightseers. On the right-hand side the 
walls of the Sema, or royal Mausoleum, were passed, 
where lay the bones of Alexander the Great; ‘and 
on the left the long porticos of the Gymnasium and the 
Law Courts formed a shaded stand for hundreds of 
people of the upper classes. On the other side of the 
road the colonnades and windows of the Museum were 
crowded, I suppose, with the professors and students 
who had come with their families to witness the specta- 
cle. Some distance farther along, the procession turned 
south, and proceeded along the broad Street of Serapis, 
at the end of which, on high ground, stood the splendid 
building of the Serapeum. Here Cleopatra and her 
court, together with the high functionaries of Alexan- 
dria, were gathered, while the priests and _priest- 
esses of Serapis were massed on either side of the street 
and upon the broad steps which led up to the porticos 
of the temple. At this poimt Antony dismounted 
from his chariot; and probably amidst the shouts 
of the spectators and the shaking of hundreds of systra, 
he ascended to the temple to offer the prescribed sacri- 
fice to Serapis, as in Rome he would have done to 
Jupiter Capitolinus. This accomplished, he returned 


312 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to the court in front of the sacred building, where a 
platform had been erected, the sides of which were 
plated with silver. On this platform, upon a throne 
of gold, sat Cleopatra, clad in the robes of Isis or Venus; 
and to her feet Antony now led the royal captives of 
Armenia, all hot and dusty from their long walk, and 
dejected by the continuous booing and jeering of the 
crowds through which they had passed. Artavasdes 
was no barbarian; he was a refined and cultured man, 
to whose sensitive nature the ordeal must have been 
most terrible. He was something of a poet, and 
in his time had written plays and tragedies not 
without merit. He was now told to abase himself be- 
fore Cleopatra, and to salute her as a goddess; but this 
he totally refused to do, and, in spite of some rough 
handling by his guards, he persisted in standing up- 
right before her and in addressing her simply by her 
name. In Rome it was customary at the conclusion 
of a Triumph to put to death the royal captives who 
had been exhibited in the procession; and now that 
he had openly insulted the Queen of Egypt he could not 
have expected to see another sun rise. Antony and 
Cleopatra, however, appear to have been touched at 
his dignified attitude; and neither he nor his family were 
harmed. Instead, they were treated with some show of 
honour, and thereafter were held as state prisoners in 
the Egyptian capital. 

The Triumph ended, a vast banquet was given to 
all the inhabitants of Alexandria; and late in the after- 
noon a second ceremony was held in the grounds of the 


5 Velleius Paterculus. 





British Museum Photograph by Macbeth 


ANTONIA 
THE DAUGHTER OF ANTONY 





PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 313 


Gymnasium. Here again, a silver-covered platform 
had been erected, upon which two large and four 
smaller thrones of gold had been set up; and, when the 
company was assembled, Antony, Cleopatra, and her 
children, took their seats upon them. Certain formali- 
ties having been observed, Antony arose to address 
the crowd; and, after referring no doubt to his 
victories, he proceeded to confer upon the queen and 
her offspring a series of startling honours. He ap- 
pears to have proclaimed Cleopatra sovereign of Egypt, 
and of the dominions which he had bestowed upon 
her at Antioch nearly three years previously. He named 
Ceesarion, the son of Julius Cesar, co-regent with his 
mother, and gavehim the mighty title of King of Kings. ° 
Ceesarion was now thirteen and a half years of age; and 
since, as Suetonius remarks, he resembled his father, 
the great Dictator, in a remarkable manner, Antony’s 
feelings must have been strangely complicated as he 
now conferred upon him these vast honours. To Alex- 
ander Helios, his own child, Antony next gave the 
kingdom of Armenia; the kingdom of Media, presum- 
ably after the death of the reigning monarch, whose 
daughter had just been married to him; and ultimately 
the kingdom of Parthia, provided that it had been 
conquered. This seems to have been arranged by 
treaty with the King of Media in the previous summer,’ 
the agreement probably being that, on the death of that 
monarch, Alexander Helios and the Median heiress, 
Iotapa, should ascend the amalgamated thrones of 


© T here adopt the statement of Dion, and not that of Plutarch. 
7 Page 308. 


314 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Armenia, Media and Parthia, Antony promising in re- 
turn to assist in the conquest of the last-named country. 
The boy was now six years of age, and his chubby little 
figure had been dressed for the occasion in Median or 
Armenian costume. Upon his head he wore the high, 
stiff tiara of these countries, from the back of which 
depended a flap of cloth covering his neck; his body was 
clothed in a sleeved tunic, over which was worn a flow- 
ing cloak, thrown over one shoulder and hanging in 
graceful folds at the back; and his legs were covered by 
the long, loosely-fitting trousers worn very generally 
throughout Persia. To Cleopatra Selene, Alexander’s 
twin sister, Antony gave Cyrenaica, Libya, and as 
much of the north-African coast as was in his gift; and 
finally he proclaimed the small Ptolemy, King of 
Phoenicia, northern Syria, and Cilicia. This little boy, 
only two years of age, had been dressed up for the oc- 
casion in Macedonian costume, and wore the national 
mantle, the boots, and the cap encircled with the dia- 
dem, in the manner made customary by the successors 
of Alexander. At the end of this surprising ceremony, 
the children, having saluted their parents, were each 
surrounded by a bodyguard composed of men belong- 
ing to the nations over whom they were to rule; 
and at last all returned in state to the Palace as the 
sun set behind the Harbour of the Happy Return. 

In celebration of the occasion coins were struck 
bearing the inscription Cleopatre regine regum filiorum 
regum—‘Of Cleopatra the Queen, and of the Kings the 
children of Kings.” Antony perhaps also caused a 
bronze statue to be made, representing his son Alex- 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 315 


ander Helios dressed in the royal costume of his new 
kingdom, for a figure has recently been discovered 
which appears to represent the boy in this manner. He 
then wrote an account of the whole affair to the Senate 
in Rome, together with a report of his Armenian war; 
and in a covering letter he told his agents to obtain a 
formal ratification of the change which he had made in 
the distribution of the thrones in his dominions. The 
news was received in Italy with astonishment, and in 
official circles the greatest exasperation was felt. 
Antony’s agents very wisely decided not to read the 
despatches to the Senate; but Octavian insisted, and 
after much wrangling their contents were at last pub- 
licly declared. Stories at once began to circulate in 
which Antony figured as a kind of Oriental Sultan, liv- 
ing at Alexandria a life of voluptuous degeneracy. He 
was declared to be constantly drunken; and, since no 
such charge could be brought against Cleopatra, the 
queen was said to keep sober by means of a magical 
ring of amethyst, which had the virtue of dispelling the 
fumes of wine from the head of the wearer. 

There can, indeed, be little doubt that Antony was 
very intemperate at this period. He was worried to 
distraction by the approach of the great war with 
Octavian; and he must have felt that his popularity in 
Rome was now very much at stake. While waiting for 
events to shape themselves, therefore, he attempted to 
free his mind from its anxieties by heavy drinking; but 
in so doing, it would seem from subsequent events, he 
began to lose the place in Cleopatra’s esteem which he 
had formerly held. She herself did not ever drink much 


316 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


wine, if we may judge from the fact, just now quoted, 
that she was at all times notably sober; and she must 
have watched with increasing uneasiness the dissolute 
habits of the man upon whom she was obliged to rely 
for the fulfilment of her ambitions. 

The fact that he was ceasing to be a Roman, and 
was daily becoming more like an Oriental potentate, 
did not trouble her so much. It differentiated him, of 
course, from the great Dictator, whose memory be- 
came more dear to her as she contrasted his activities 
with Antony’s growing laziness; but all her life she had 
been accustomed to the ways of Eastern monarchs, and 
she could not have been much shocked at her husband’s 
new method of life, except in so far as it modified his 
abilities as an active leader of men. Now that the 
quarrel with Octavian was coming to a head, her 
throne and her very existence depended on Antony’s 
ability to inspire and to command; and I dare say a 
limited adoption of the manners of the East made him 
more agreeable to the people with whom he had to deal. 


*‘Cleopatra,”’ says the violently partisan Florus, ‘asked 
of the drunken general as the price of her love the Roman 
Empire, and Antony promised it to her, as though Romans 
were easier to conquer than Parthians. . . . Forgetting his 
country, his name, his toga, and the insignia of his office, he 
had degenerated wholly, in thought, feeling, and dress, into 
that monster of whom we know. In his hand was a golden 
sceptre, at his side a scimitar; his purple robes were clasped 
with great jewels; and he wore a diadem upon his head so 
that he might be a king to match the queen he loved.”’ 


The Palace at Alexandria had been much embel- 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 317 


lished and decorated during recent years; and it was 
now a fitting setting for the ponderous movements of 
this burly monarch of the East. Lucan tells us how 
sumptuous a place the royal home had come to be. 
The ceilings were fretted and inlaid, and gold-foil hid 
the rafters. The walls and pillars were mainly made of 
fine marble, but a considerable amount of purple 
porphyry ® and agate were used in the decoration. The 
flooring of some of the halls was of onyx or alabaster; 
ebony was used as freely as common wood; and ivory 
was to be seen on all sides. The doors were ornamented 
with tortoise-shells brought from India, and studded 
with emeralds. The couches and chairs were encrusted 
with gems; much of the furniture was shining with 
jasper and carnelian; and there were many priceless 
tables of carved ivory. The coverings were bright with 
Tyrian dye, shining with spangled gold, or fiery with 
cochineal. About the halls walked slaves, chosen for 
their good looks. Some were dark-skinned, others were 
white; some had the crisp black hair of the Ethiopians, 
others the golden or flaxen locks of Gaul and Germania. 
Pliny tells us that Antony bought two boys for £800 
each, and that they were supposed to be twins, but that 
actually they came from different countries. Of Cleo- 
patra, Lucan writes: 


‘She breathes heavily beneath the weight of her orna- 
ments, and her white breasts shine through the Sidonian 


8] suppose the “purple stone” referred to by Lucan was the famous 
imperial porphyry from the quarries of Gebel Dukhan, though I am not certain 
that the stone was used as early as this. Cf. my expedition to these quarries 
described in my Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts. 


318 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fabric which, wrought in close texture by the sley of the 
Chinese, the needle of the workmen of the Nile has separated, 
loosening the warp by stretching out the web.” 


The newly-developed trade with India had filled the 
Palace with the luxurious fabrics of the Orient; and the 
Greek, or even Egyptian character of the materials and 
objects in daily use was beginning to be lost in the med- 
ley of heterogeneous articles drawn from all parts of 
the world. 

Amidst these theatrical surroundings Antony acted, 
with a kind of childish extravagance, the part of the 
half-divine Autocrat of the East. When he was sober 
his mind must have been full of cares and anxieties; but 
on the many occasions when he was somewhat intoxi- 
cated he behaved himself in the manner of an overgrown 
boy. He delighted in the general recognition of his 
identity with Bacchus or Dionysos; and he loved to 
hear himself spoken of as the new “Liber Pater.” In 
the festivals of that deity he was driven through the 
streets of Alexandria in a car constructed like that 
traditionally used by the bibulous god; a golden crown 
upon his head, often poised, it would seem, at a pecu- 
liar angle, garlands of ivy tossed about his shoulders, 
buskins on his feet, and the thyrsus in his hand. In this 
manner he was trundled along the stately Street of 
Canopus, surrounded by leaping women and prancing 
men, the crowds on either side of the road shouting and 
yelling their merry salutations to him. A temple in his 
honour was begun in the Regia at Alexandria, just to 
the west of the Forum; but this was not completed until 
some years afterwards, when it was converted into a 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 319 


shrine in honour of Octavian, and was known as the 
Ceesareum. On one occasion he assigned the part of the 
sea-god Glaucus to his friend Plancus, who forthwith 
danced about at a banquet, naked and painted blue, a 
chaplet of sea-weed upon his head and a fish-tail tied 
from his waist. 

Antony had never troubled himself much in regard 
to his dignity; and now, in the character of the jolly 
ruler of the East, he was quite unmindful of his appear- 
ance in the eyes of serious men. Often he was to be 
seen walking on foot by the side of Cleopatra’s chariot, 
talking to the eunuchs and servants who followed in her 
train. He caused the queen to give him the post of 
Superintendent of the Games—a position which was not 
considered to be particularly honourable. It is ap- 
parent that her company had become very essential to 
him, and much notice was taken of the fact that he now 
accompanied her wherever she went. He rode through 
the streets at her side, conducted the official and reli- 
gious ceremonies for her, or sat by her when she was 
trying cases in the public tribunal. Sometimes when 
he himself was alone upon the judicial bench, looking 
out of the window in the midst of some intricate judg- 
ment, and by chance seeing Cleopatra’s chariot passing 
by across the square, he would, without explanation, 
start up from his seat, run over to her, and walk back 
to the Palace at her side, leaving the magistrate, police, 
and prisoners in open-mouthed astonishment. 

We hear nothing in regard to Antony’s relations 
with his children, and it is difficult to picture him as he 
appeared in the family circle. His stepson Cesarion, 


320 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


his two sons Alexander and Ptolemy, and his daughter 
Cleopatra, were all at this time residing in the Palace; 
and moreover his son by Fulvia, Antyllus, a boy some- 
what younger than Cesarion, had now come to live 
with him in Alexandria. It is probable that he was an 
affectionate and indulgent father; and there must have 
been many happy scenes enacted in the royal nurser- 
ies, which, could they have been recorded, would have 
gone far to correct the popular estimate of the nature 
of Antony’s home life with Cleopatra. The queen was 
his legal wife;® and in contemplating the extravagances 
and eccentricities of his behaviour at Alexandria, we 
must not lose sight of the obvious fact that his life at 
this period had also its domestic aspect. He did not ad- 
mit to himself that his union with Cleopatra was in any 
way scandalous; and writing to Octavian in the following 
year he seems to be quite surprised that his family life 
should be regarded as infamous. “Is it because I live 
in intimate relations with a queen?”’ he asks. “She is 
my wife. Is this a new thing with me? Have I not 
acted so for these nine years?’”’ Indeed, as compared 
with Octavian’s private life, the family circle at Alex- 
andria in spite of Antony’s buffoonery and heavy drink- 
ing, was by no means wholly shameful. In Rome, 
Octavian was at this time employing his friends to 
search the town for women to amuse him, and these 
agents, acting on his orders, are related to have ‘kid- 
napped respectable girls, and to have torn their clothes 


° Even Athenzus refers to Antony as being married to Cleopatra; and the 
reader must remember that, not the fact of the marriage, but only the date at 
which it occurred, is at all open to question. I do not think this is generally 
recognised. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 321 


from them, as did the common slave-dealers, in order 
to ascertain whether they were fit presents for their 
vile master. We hear no such stories in regard to the 
jovial Antony. 

A characteristic tale is told by Plutarch which il- 
lustrates the open-handed opulence of the Alex- 
andrian court at this time. A certain Philotas, while 
dining with Antony’s son Antyllus, shut the mouth of 
a rather noisy comrade by a very absurd syllogism, 
which made everybody laugh. Antyllus was so de- 
lighted that he promptly made a present of a side- 
board covered with valuable plate to the embarrassed 
Philotas, who, of course, refused it, not imagining that a 
youth of that age could dispose in this light manner of 
such costly objects. Having returned to his house, how- 
ever, a friend presently arrived, bringing the plate to 
him; and on his still objecting to receive it, ““What ails 
the man?” said the bearer of the gift. ‘‘Don’t you 
know that he who gives this is Antony’s son, who is 
free to give it even if it were all gold?” 

Thus the winter of B.c. 34-33 passed, and in the 
spring of 33, Antony set out for his summer quarters in 
Syria. He desired to cement the agreement with the 
King of Media, in order to guard himself against a 
Parthian attack while engaged in the coming war with 
Octavian, and for this purpose he determined to pro- 
ceed at once to the borders of that country. Cleopatra, 
therefore, did not accompany him; and in this fact we 
may perhaps see an indication of some loss of interest 
on her part, due to her growing disrespect for him. 
Passing through Syria he went north-eastward into 


322 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Armenia, and there he seems to have effected a meeting 
with the King of Media. To him he now gave a large 
portion of Greater Armenia, and tothe King of Pontus he 
handed over the territory known as Lesser Armenia. 
The little Median princess, Iotapa, who had been mar- 
ried to the young Alexander Helios, was placed in the 
care of Antony with the idea that she should be edu- 
cated at Alexandria. With her the king sent Antony a 
present of the eagles captured from his army at the 
time when the siege-train was lost in B.c. 36; and he 
also presented him with a regiment of the famous 
mounted archers who had wrought so much havoc on 
the Roman lines in the late campaign, while in return 
for these men Antony sent a detachment of legionaries 
to the Median capital. 

The Parthian danger being thus circumvented by 
this extremely important and far-reaching compact 
with Media, Antony set out for Egypt with the idea of 
spending the winter there once more.‘® He took with 
him the little Princess Iotapa, and in the early autumn 
he reached Alexandria. His news in regard to Media 
must have been very satisfactory to Cleopatra, and 
Iotapa thenceforth became the companion of the royal 
children in the Palace. But the news which he had to 
relate in connection with Octavian was of the worst, 
and Cleopatra must have asked him in astonishment 
how he could think of spending the winter quietly in 
Alexandria in view of the imminence of war. In the 
first place, the Triumvirate"! came toan end atthe close 


*°Ferrero thinks he went direct to Ephesus, but Bouche-Leclerq and others 
are of opinion that he went first to Alexandria, and with this I agree. 
*TPage 281. 


PREPARATIONS AGAINST OCTAVIAN 323 


of the year, and it seemed likely that Octavian would 
bring matters to an issue on that date. Then Octavian 
had attacked him violently in the Senate, and excited 
the public mind against his rival; and Antony, hearing 
of this while in Armenia, wrote to him an obscene letter, 
much too disgusting to quote here. To this Octavian 
replied in ike manner. Antony then charged him with 
acting unfairly, firstly, by not dividing the spoils cap- 
tured from Sextus Pompetus; secondly, by not returning 
the ships which had been lent to him for the Pompeian 
war; thirdly, by not sharing the province of Africa taken 
over after the retirement of Lepidus, and lastly, that he 
had parcelled out almost all the free land in Italy 
amongst his own soldiers, thus leaving none for An- 
tony’s legionaries. Octavian had replied that he would 
divide all the spoils of war as soon as Antony gave him 
a share in Armenia and Egypt, while in regard to the 
lands given as rewards to his legionaries, Antony’s 
troops could hardly want them, since, no doubt, by now 
they had all Media and Parthia to share amongst them- 
selves. This reference to Egypt, as though it were a 
province of Rome instead of an independent kingdom, 
must have been deeply annoying to Cleopatra; but, on 
the other hand, it was pleasant to hear that Octavian 
had abused Antony for living immorally with the queen, 
and that Antony had replied by stating emphatically 
that she was his legal wife. 

The war, thus, was now on the eve of breaking out, 
and Cleopatra must have been in a fever of excitement. 
Antony’s vague and casual behaviour seems, therefore, 
to have annoyed her very considerably; and it was not 


324 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


until he had decided to take up his winter quarters at 
Ephesus instead of in Egypt that harmony was re- 
stored. Once aroused, he acted with energy. He sent 
messengers in all directions to gather in his forces; and 
he eagerly helped Cleopatra to make her warlike prepa- 
rations in her own country. In a few weeks the ar- 
rangements were complete, and Antony and Cleopatra 
set out for Ephesus early in the winter of B.c. 33, at the 
head of a huge assemblage of naval and military arma- 
ments and munitions. The people of Alexandria must 
have realised that their queen was going forth upon the 
most marvellous adventure. Only a few years ago they 
had lain prone under the heel of Italy, expecting at any 
moment to be deprived of their independent existence. 
Now, thanks to the skill, the tact, and the charm of 
their divine queen, their incarnate Isis-Aphrodite, they 
were privileged to witness the departure of the ships, 
the hosts, and the captains of Egypt for the conquest 
of mighty Rome. They had heard Cleopatra swear to 
seat herself and her son Cesarion in the Capitol; and 
there could have been few in the cheering crowds whose 
hearts did not swell with pride at the thought of the 
glorious future which awaited their country and their 
royal house? 


ws Yas 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER 


THE city of Ephesus was situated near the mouth of 
the river Caystrus in the shadow of the Messogis moun- 
tains, not far south of Smyrna, and overlooking the 
island of Samos. Standing on the coast of Asia Minor, 
near the frontier which divided Lydia from Caria, it 
looked directly across the sea to Athens, and was shel- 
tered from the menacing coasts of Italy by the inter- 
vening Greek peninsula. Ephesus, I need hardly 
remind the reader, was famous for its temple, dedicated 
to Diana of the Ephesians. The building was con- 
structed of white marble and cypress and cedar-wood, 
and was richly ornamented with gold. Many statues 
adorned its colonnades, and there were many cele- 
brated paintings upon its walls, including a fine picture 
of Alexander the Great. Diana was here worshipped 
under the name Artemis, and was often identified with 
Venus, with whom Cleopatra claimed identity. Here 
Antony and Cleopatra collected their forces, and soon 
the ancient city came to be the largest military and 
naval centre in the world. Cleopatra had brought with 
her from Egypt a powerful fleet of two hundred ships 


of war, and a host of soldiers, sailors, workmen, and 
325 


3826 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


slaves. She had drawn 20,000 talents (7.e., £4,000,000) 
from her treasury; and, besides this, she had brought a 
vast amount of corn, food-stuffs, clothing, arms, and 
munitions of war. From Syria, Armenia, and Pontus, 
vessels were arriving daily with further supplies; and 
Antony’s own fleet of many hundred battleships and 
vessels of burden was rapidly mobilising at the mouth 
of the river. All day and all night the roads to the city 
thundered with the tread of armed men, as the kings 
and rulers of the East marched their armies to the 
rendezvous. Bocchus, King of Mauritania; Tarcondi- 
motus, ruler of Upper Cilicia; Archelaus, King of 
Cappadocia; Philadelphus, King of Paphlagonia; Mithri- 
dates, King of Commagene; Sadalas and Rhcemetalces, 
Kings of Thrace; Amyntas, King of Galatia, and many 
other great rulers, responded to the call to arms, and 
hastened to place their services at the disposal of 
Antony and his queen. 

One cannot help wondering whether these mighty 
men realised for what they were about to fight. They 
were flocking to the standard of a man who had held 
supreme power over their countries for many years and 
whose rule had been kindly and easy. They owed a 
great deal to him—in some cases their very thrones; 
and, were he now to be defeated by his rival, they 
would probably fall with him. Success, however, 
seemed certain in view of Antony’s enormous forces; 
and they therefore felt that the assistance which they 
gave would undoubtedly bear abundant fruit, and that 
their reward would be great. Antony, of course, told 
them, perhaps with his tongue in his cheek, that he was 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER 327 


fighting to some extent on behalf of the Roman Re- 
public, in order to free the country from the oppression 
of an autocratic rule, and to restore the old constitu- 
tion. He was not such a fool as to admit that he was 
alming at a throne; Julius Cesar had been assassinated 
on that very account, and a declaration of this kind 
_ would likewise alienate a large number of his supporters 
in Rome. He still had numerous friends in the capital, 
men who disliked the forbidding personality of Oc- 
tavian, and who admired his own frank and open 
manners. Moreover, a considerable body supported 
him in memory of the great Dictator, regarding Antony 
as the guardian of young Ceesarion, whose rights they 
had at heart. A story, of which we have already heard, 
had been circulated in regard to Julius Cesar’s will. It 
was said that the document which decreed Octavian 
the heir was not the Dictator’s last testament, but that 
he had made a later will in favour of Cleopatra’s son, 
Ceesarion, which had been suppressed, probably by 
Calpurnia. Thus, to many of his Roman friends, 
Antony was fighting to carry out the Dictator’s wishes, 
and to overthrow the usurping Octavian. Was this, 
one asks, the justification which he placed before the 
consideration of the vassal kings? At any rate, Dion 
Cassius states definitely that Antony’s recognition of 
Ceesarion’s right to this great inheritance was the real 
cause of the war. 

It does not seem to me that this point is fully recog- 
nised by historians; but it is very apparent that An- 
tony’s position at Ephesus would have been almost 
untenable without a justification such as that of the 


328 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


championing of Cesarion. It was plain to every East- 
ern eye that he was acting in conjunction with Egypt 
and with Cleopatra; and all men now knew that the 
queen was his legal wife. It was obvious that, if suc- 
cessful, he would enter Rome with the Queen of Egypt 
by his side. Yet, at the same time, he was denying that 
he intended to establish a monarchy in Rome on the 
lines proposed by the Dictator, and he was talking a 
great deal of rubbish about reviving the republic. 
There is, surely, only one way in which these divergent 
interests could be made to fit into a scheme capable of 
satisfying both his Roman and his Oriental supporters; 
and would serve as a professed justification for the war; 
he was going to establish the Dictator’s son, Cesarion, 
in his father’s seat, and to turn out the wrongful heir, 
Octavian. He himself would be the boy’s guardian, and 
would act, at any rate in Italy, on republican lines. 
Cleopatra, as his wife, would doff her crown while in 
Italy, but would assume it once more within her own 
dominions, just as Julius Cesar had proposed to do in 
the last year of his life. Of course it must have been 
recognised that the throne of Rome would ultimately 
be offered to him, and that he would hand it on to 
Cesarion in due course, thus founding a dynasty of the 
blood of the divine Julius; but this fact was kept 
severely in the background. If Cesarion and his cause 
had not formed part of the casus belli, it is unlikely that 
Antony would have been at all widely supported in 
Rome; and what man would have tolerated the armed 


presence of Cleopatra*and her Egyptians, save in her 
t Page 173. 





CLEOPATRA AND HER SON CASARION 
REPRESENTED CONVENTIONALLY UPON A WALL OF THE TEMPLE OF DENDERA 





DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER — 329 


capacity as mother of the claimant and wife of the 
claimant’s guardian? Without Cesarion, what was 
Antony’s justification for the war? I can find very 
little. He would have been fighting to turn out Octa- 
vian, who, in that case, would have been the rightful 
and only heir; he would have been introducing Cleo- 
patra into Roman politics with the obvious intention 
of creating a throne for her, the very step which had 
been Cesar’s undoing; and he would have been offer- 
ing her royal view of life in exchange for Octavian’s 
republican sentiments, not as something of which the 
best had to be made under the circumstances, but as a 
habit of mind desirable in itself. His apparent defer- 
ence to Cleopatra, and the manner in which she 
shared his supremacy, must have been liable to cause 
much offence in Rome and in Ephesus, and would never 
have been tolerated had she not been put forward as 
Julius Ceesar’s widow and the mother of his son. 

The armies marching into the city comprised sol- 
diers of almost every nation. There were nineteen 
Roman legions; troops of Gauls and Germans; con- 
tingents of Moorish, Egyptian, Sfiidanese, Arab, and 
Bedouin warriors; the wild tribesmen from Media; 
hardy Armenians; barbaric fighting men from the coast 
of the Black Sea; Greeks, Jews and Syrians. The streets 
of the city were packed with men in every kind of 
costume, bearing all manner of arms, and talking a 
hundred languages. Never, probably, in the world’s 
history had so many nationalities been gathered to- 
gether; and Cleopatra’s heart must have been nigh 
bursting with feminine pride and gratification at the 


330 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


knowledge that in reality she had been the cause of the 
great mobilisation. They had come together at An- 
tony’s bidding, it is true; but they had come to fight 
her battles. They were here to vindicate her honour, 
to place her upon the throne of the world. With their 
forests of swords and spears they were about to justify 
those nights, nearly sixteen years ago, when, as the wild 
little queen of little Egypt, she lay in the arms of 
Rome’s mighty old reprobate. In those far-off days 
she was fighting to retain the independence of her small 
country and her dynasty; now she was queen of domin- 
ions more extensive than any governed by the proudest 
of the Pharaohs, and she would soon see her royal house 
raised to a height never before attained by man. It was 
her custom at this time to use as an oath the words, 
‘*As surely as I shall one day administer justice on the 
Capitol’’; and, proudly acting the part of hostess in 
Ephesus, she must have felt that the great day was 
very near. Already the Ephesians were hailing her as 
their queen, and the deference paid to her by the vassal 
kings was very marked. 

In the spring of B.c. 32, some four hundred Roman 
senators arrived at Antony’s headquarters. These men 
stated that Octavian, after denouncing his rival in the 
Senate, had advised all who were on the enemy’s 
side to quit the city, whereupon they had set sail 
for Ephesus, leaving behind them some seven or 
eight hundred senators who either held with Octavian 
or pursued a non-committal policy. War had not yet 
been declared, but no declaration seemed now to be 
necessary. 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER _ 331 


With the arrival of the senators, trouble began to 
brew in the camp. Cleopatra’s power and authority 
were much resented by the new-comers, to whom the 
existing situation was something of a revelation. They 
had not realised that the Queen of Egypt was playing 
an active part in the preparations, and many of them 
speedily recognised the fact that Antony, as Autocrat 
of the East and husband of Cleopatra, was hardly the 
man to restore a republican government to Rome. It 
was not long before some of them began to show their 
dislike of the queen and to hint that she ought to retire 
into the background, at any rate for the time being. 
There was one old soldier, Cnzeus Domitius Ahenobar- 
bus, the representative of an ancient republican family, 
who would never acknowledge Cleopatra’s right to 
the supremacy which she had attained, nor, on any 
occasion, would he address her by her title, but al- 
ways called her simply by her name. This man at 
length told Antony in the most direct manner that he 
ought to send Cleopatra back to Egypt, there to await 
the conclusion of the war. He seems to have pointed 
out that her presence with the army gave a false impres- 
ston, and would be liable to alienate the sympathies of 
many of his Roman friends. He suggested, perhaps, 
that the queen should vacate her place in favour of 
Cesarion, whose rights few denied. Antony, seeing 
the wisdom of this advice, told Cleopatra to return to 
Alexandria; but, she, in great alarm, is said to have 
bribed Publius Canidius, one of Antony’s most trusted 
councillors, to plead with him on her behalf—the re- 
sult being that the proposal of Domitius Ahenobarbus 


332 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


was discarded, and the queen remained with the army. 
Publius Canidius had pointed out to Antony that the 
Egyptian fleet would fight much more willingly if their 
queen were with them, and Egyptian money would be 
more readily obtained if she herself were felt to be in 
need of it. “And, besides,’’ said he, “I do not see to 
which of the kings who have joined this expedition 
Cleopatra is inferior in wisdom; for she has for a long 
time governed by herself a vast kingdom, and has learnt 
in your company the handling of great affairs.’’? 

The queen’s continuance at Ephesus and her con- 
nection with the war was the cause of great dis- 
sensions, and the Roman senators began to range 
themselves into two distinct parties; those who fell in 
with Antony’s schemes, and those who now favoured a 
reconciliation with Octavian as a means of ridding 
Roman politics of Cleopatra’s disturbing influence. 
When the efforts of the peacemakers came to her ears 
her annoyance must have been intense. Were all her 
hopes to be dashed to the ground just because a few 
stifi-backed senators disliked the idea of a foreign 
sovereign concerning herself with republican politics? 
She no longer trusted Antony, for it seemed apparent 
to her that he was, at heart, striving only for his own 
aggrandisement, and was prepared to push her into the 
background at the moment when her interests threat- 
ened to injure hisown. It was she who had incited him 
into warfare, who had kept him up to the mark, aroused 
him to his duties, and financed to a large extent his 
present operations; and yet he was, even at this eleventh 

2 Plutarch, 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER — 333 


hour, half-minded to listen to those who urged him to 
make peace. Only recently he had made some sort of 
offer to Octavian to lay down his arms if the latter would 
do likewise. At the time Cleopatra had probably 
thought this simply a diplomatic move designed to 
gain popularity; but now she seems to have questioned 
seriously Antony’s desire for war, and to have asked 
herself whether he would not much prefer peace, quict- 
ness, and leisure wherein to drink and feast to his jovial 
heart’s content. Yet war was essential to her ambi- 
tions, and to the realisation of the rights of her son. 
If Octavian were not overthrown, she would never have 
any sense of security; and with all her heart she desired 
to come to a safe harbour after these years of storm and 
stress. 

It will be seen, then, that to her the need of pre- 
venting peace was paramount. She therefore made one 
last effort in this direction; and, bringing all her arts 
and devices to bear upon her husband, she began to 
persuade him to issue a writ casting off Octavia and 
thereby insulting Octavian beyond the limits of apology. 
As soon as the scheme came to the ears of the peace 
party, pressure was brought to bear on Antony to ef- 
fect a reconciliation with Octavia; and the unfortunate 
man appears to have been badgered and pestered by 
both factions until he must have been heartily sick of 
the subject. Cleopatra’s councils, however, at last 
prevailed to this extent, that Antony decided to make 
a forward movement and to cross the sea to Greece, 
thus bringing hostilities a step nearer. At the end of 
April he sailed over from Ephesus to the island of 


334 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Samos, leaving a part of the army behind him. Here 
he remained for two or three weeks, during which time, 
in reaction after his worries, he indulged in a round of 
dissipations. He*had told his various vassals to bring 
with them to the rendezvous their leading actors and 
comedians, so that the great gathering should not lack 
amusement; and now these players were shipped across 
to Samos, there to perform before this audience of kings 
and rulers. These sovereigns competed with one an- 
other in the giving of superb banquets, but we do not 
now hear of any such extravagances on the part of Cleo- 
patra, who was probably far too anxious, and too 
sobered, to give any extraordinary attention to her 
duties as hostess. Splendid sacrifices were offered to 
the gods in the island temples, each city contributing 
an ox for this purpose; and the sacred buildings must 
have resounded with invocations to almost every popu- 
lar deity of the East and West. The contrast was strik- 
ing between the brilliancy and festivity at Samos and 
the anxiety and dejection of the cities of the rest of the 
world, which had been bereft of their soldiers and their 
money, and were about to be plunged into all the 
horrors of internecine warfare. 


“While pretty nearly the whole world,” says Plutarch, 
‘was filled with groans and lamentations, this one island 
for some days resounded with piping and harping, theatres 
filling, and choruses playing; so that men began to ask 
themselves what would be done to celebrate victory when 
they went to such an expense of festivity at the opening 
of the war.” 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER — 335 


Towards the end of May the great assemblage 
crossed over the sea to Athens, and here Antony and 
Cleopatra held their court. The queen’s mind was now, 
I fancy, in a very disturbed condition, owing to the 
ominous dissensions arising from her presence with the 
army, and to the lack of confidence which she was feel- 
ing in her-husband’s sincerity. I think it very probable 
that they were not on the best of terms with one an- 
other at this time, and, although Antony was perhaps 
a good deal more devoted to the queen than he had been 
before, there may have been some bickering and actual 
_ quarrelling. Cleopatra desired the divorce of Octavia 
and immediate war, but Antony on his part was seem- 
ingly disinclined to take any decisive steps. He was, 
in fact, in a very great dilemma. He had, apparently, 
promised the queen that if he were victorious he would 
_ at once aim for the monarchy proposed by Julius Cesar, 
and would arrange for Cesarion to succeed in due 
course to the throne; but now it had been pointed out to 
him by the majority of the senators who were with him 
that he was earnestly expected to restore the republic, 
and to celebrate his victory by becoming once more an 
ordinary citizen. In early life he would have faced these 
difficulties with a light heart, and devised some means 
of turning the situation to his own advantage. Now, 
however, the power of his will had been undermined by 
excessive drinking; and, moreover, he had come to be 
extremely dependent upon Cleopatra in all things. 
_ He was very fond of her, and was becoming daily more 
maudlin in his affections. He was now nearly fifty 
years old; and, with the decrease of his vitality, he had 


336 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ceased to be so promiscuous in affairs of the heart, 
centering his interest more wholly upon the queen, 
though she herself was no longer very youthful, being 
at this time some thirty-eight years of age. His quarrels 
with her seemed to have distressed him very much, and 
in his weakened condition, her growing disrespect for 
him caused him to be more devotedly her slave. He 
seems to have watched with a sort of bibulous admira- 
tion her masterly and energetic handling of affairs, and 
he was anxious to do his best to retain her affection for 
him, which he could see, was on the wane. To the 
dauntless heart of a woman like Cleopatra, however, 
no appeal could be made save by manly strength and 
powerful determination; and one seems to observe the 
growth in the queen’s mind of a kind of horror at the 
rapid degeneration of the man whom she had loved and 
trusted. y 

To make matters worse, there arrived at Athens 
Antony’s fourteen-year-old son, Antyllus, whom we 
have already met at Alexandria. He had recently been 
in Rome, where he had been kindly treated by the 
dutiful Octavia, whose attitude to all her husband’s 
children was invariably generous and noble. Antony 
regarded this boy, it would seem, with great affec- 
tion, and had caused him to be proclaimed an heredi- 
tary prince. The lad became something of a rival to 
Cesarion, to whom Cleopatra was devotedly attached; 
and one may perhaps see in his presence at Athens 
a further cause for dissension. | 

At length, however, early in June, the queen per- 
suaded Antony to take the final step, and to divorce 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER _ 337 


Octavia. Having placed the matter before his senators, 
by whom the question was angrily discussed, he sent 
messengers to Rome to serve Octavia with the order of 
ejection from his house; and at the same time he issued 
a command to the troops still at Ephesus to cross at 
once to Greece. This was tantamount to a declaration 
of war, and Cleopatra’s mind must have been extremely 
relieved thereby. No sooner, however, had this step 
been taken than many of Antony’s Roman friends ap- 
pear to have come to him in the greatest alarm, pointing 
out that the brutal treatment of Octavia, who had won 
all men’s sympathy by her quiet and dutiful behaviour, 
would turn from him a great number of his supporters 
in Italy, and would be received as a clear indication of 
his subserviency to Cleopatra. They implored him to 
eorrect this impression; and Antony, harassed and 
confused, thereupon made a speech to his Roman 
legions promising them that within two months of their 
final victory he would re-establish the republic. 

The announcement must have come as a shock to 
Cleopatra, and must have shown her clearly that 
Antony was playing a double game. She realised, no 
doubt, that the promise did not necessitate the aban- 
donment of their designs in regard to the mon- 
archy; for, after establishing the old constitution, 
Antony would have plenty of time in which to build the 
foundations of a throne. Yet the declaration unnerved 
her, and caused her to recognise with more clarity the 
great divergence between her autocratic sentiments 
and the democratic principles of the country she was 
attempting to bring under her sway. She saw that, 


338 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


little by little, the basis upon which the project of the 
war was founded was being changed. At first the great 
justification for hostilities had been the ousting of 
Octavian from the estate belonging by right to her son, 
Cesarion. Now the talk was all of liberty, of 
democracy, and of the restoration of republican 
institutions. 

Her overwrought feelings, however, were somewhat 
soothed by Antony’s personal behaviour, which at this 
time was anything but democratic. He was allowing 
himself to be recognised as a divine personage by the 
Athenians, and he insisted on the payment of the most 
royal and celestial honours to Cleopatra, of whom he 
was at this time inordinately proud- The queen was, 
indeed, in these days supreme, and the early authors 
are all agreed that Antony was to a large extent under 
her thumb. The Athenians, recognising her as their 
fellow-Greek, were eager to admit her omnipotence. 
They caused her statue to be set up in the Acropolis 
near that already erected to Antony; they hailed her as 
Aphrodite; they voted her all manner of municipal 
honours, and, to announce the fact, sent a deputation 
to her which was headed by Antony in his réle as a 
freeman of the city. Octavia, it will be remembered, 
had resided at Athens some years previously, and had 
been much liked by the citizens; but the memory of her 
quiet and pathetic figure was quickly obliterated by the 
presence of the splendid little Queen of Egypt, who sat 
by Antony’s side at the head of a gathering of kings and 
princes. Already she seemed to. be Queen of the Earth; 
for, acting as hostess to all these monarchs, speaking to 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER _— 339 


each in his own language, and entertaining them with 
her brilliant wit, she appeared to be the leading spirit 
both in their festivities and in their councils. 

Antony, meanwhile, having quieted the dissensions 
amongst his supporters, gave himself up to merry-mak- 
ing in his habitual manner; and presently he caused the 
Athenians to recognise him formally as Dionysos, or 
Bacchus, come down to earth. In anticipation of a 
certain Bacchic day of festival he set all the carpenters 
in the city to make a huge skeleton roof over the big 
theatre, this being then covered with green branches 
and vines, as in the caves sacred to this god, and from 
these branches hundreds of drums, faun-skins, and other 
Bacchic toys and symbols were suspended. On the 
festal day, Antony sat himself, with his friends around 
him, in the middle of the theatre, the afternoon sun 
splashing down upon them through the interlaced 
greenery; and thus, in the guise of Bacchus, he presided 
at a wild drinking-bout, hundreds of astonished Athen- 
iaxs watching him from around the theatre. When 
darkness had fallen the city was illuminated, and, in 
the light of a thousand torches and lanterns, Antony 
rollicked up to the Acropolis, where he was proclaimed 
as the god himself. 

Many were the banquets given at this time both by 
Antony and Cleopatra, and the behaviour of the former 
was often uproarious and undignified. On one state 
occasion he caused much excitement by going across to 
Cleopatra in the middle of the meal and rubbing her 
feet, a ministration always performed by a slave, and 
now undertaken by him, it is said, to fulfil a wager. 


340 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


He was always heedless of public opinion, and at this 
period of his life the habit of indifference to com- 
ment had grown upon him to a startling extent. 
Frequently he would rudely interrupt an audience 
which he was giving to one of the vassal kings by re- 
celving and openly reading some message from Cleo- 
patra written upon a tablet of onyx or crystal; and once 
when Furnius, a famous orator, was pleading a case be- 
fore him, he brought the eloquent speech to an abrupt 
end by hurrying off to join the queen outside, having 
entirely forgotten, it would seem, that the orator’s 
arguments were being addressed to himself. 

_ An event now occurred which threw the whole of the 
Antonian party into a state of the utmost anxiety. Two 
of the leading men at that time in Athens deserted and 
went over to Octavian. One of these, Titius, has al- 
ready been noticed in connection with the arrest and 
execution of Sextus Pompeius ; the other, Plancus, was 
the man who made so great a fool of himself at Alex- 
andria when he painted himself blue and danced naked 
about the room, as has been described already. Vel- 
letus speaks of him as “the meanest flatterer of the 
queen, a man more obsequious than any slave’; and 
one need not be surprised, therefore, that Cleopatra 
was rude to him, which was the cause, so he said, of his 
desertion. These two men had both been witnesses to 
Antony’s will, a copy of which had been deposited with 
the Vestal Virgins; and as soon as they were come to 
Rome they informed Octavian of its contents, who 


promptly went to the temple of Vesta, seized the docu- 
3 Page 319, 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER = 341 


ment, and, a few days later, read it out to the Senate. 
Many senators were scandalised at the proceedings; 
but they were, nevertheless, curious to hear what the 
will set forth, and therefore did not oppose the reading. 
The only clause, however, out of which Octavian was 
able to make much capital was that wherein Antony 
stated that if he were to die in Rome he desired his 
body, after being carried in state through the Forum, 
to be sent to Alexandria, there to be buried beside 
Cleopatra. 

The two deserters now began to spread throughout 
Italy all manner of stories derogatory to Antony, and to 
heap abuse upon the queen, whom they described as 
having complete ascendancy over her husband, due, 
they were sure, to the magical love-potions which she 
secretly administered to him. When we consider that 
the accusations made by disreputable tattlers, such as 
Plancus, were all concerned with Antony’s devotion to 
her, we may realise how little there really was to be 
brought against her. Antony, they said, was under her 
magical spell; he had allowed the Ephesians to hail 
her as queen; she had forced him to present to her the 
library of Pergamum (a city not far from Ephesus), 
consisting of 200,000 volumes; he was wont to become 
drunken while she, of course by magic, remained sober; 
he had become her slave and even rubbed her feet al- 
ways for her, and so on. Such rubbishy tales as these 
were the basis upon which the fabulous story of Cleo- 
patra’s terrible wickedness was founded, and presently 
we hear her spoken of as “the harlot queen of incestu- 
ous Canopus, who aspired to set up against Jupiter 


342 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the barking Anubis, and to drown the Roman trumpet 
with her jangling sistrum.”’4 

The friends of Antony in Rome, alarmed by the 
hostile attitude of the majority of the public, sent a 
certain Geminius to Athens to warn their leader that 
he would soon be proclaimed an enemy of the state. On 
his arrival at the headquarters, he was thought to be an 
agent of Octavia, and both Cleopatra and Antony 
treated him with considerable coldness, assigning to 
him the least important place at their banquets, and 
making him a continual butt for their most biting re- 
marks. For some time he bore this treatment patiently; 
but at length one night, when both he and Antony 
were somewhat intoxicated, the latter asked him point- 
blank what was his business at Athens, and Geminius, 
springing to his feet, replied that he would keep 
that until a soberer hour, but one thing he would say 
here and now, drunk or sober, that if only the queen 
would go back to Egypt all would be well with their 
cause. At this Antony was furious, but Cleopatra, 
keeping her temper, said in her most scathing manner: 
“You have done well, Geminius, to tell your secret 
without being put to torture.’’ A day or two later he 
slipped away from Athens and hurried back to Rome. 

The next man to desert was’ Marcus Silanus, 
formerly an officer of Julius Ceesar in Gaul, who also 
carried to Rome stories of Cleopatra’s power and 
Antony’s weakness. Shortly after this, Octavian issued 


4Propertius. Canopus was an Egyptian port with a reputation much like 
that once held by the modern Port Said. Anubis was sine Egyptian jackal-god, 
connected witb the ritual of the dead. 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER — 343 


a formal declaration of war, not, however, against 
Antony but against Cleopatra. The decree deprived 
Antony of his offices and his authority, because, it de- 
clared, he had allowed a woman to exercise it in his place. 
Octavian added that Antony had evidently drunk po- 
tions which had bereft him of his senses, and that the 
generals against whom the Romans would fight would 
be the Egyptian court-eunuchs, Mardion and Pothe- 
inos;5 Cleopatra’s hair-dressing girl, Iras, and her at- 
tendant, Charmion; for these nowadays were Antony’s 
chief state-councillors. The queen was thus made to 
realise that her husband’s cause in Rome was suffering 
very seriously from her presence with the army; but, 
at the same time, were she now to return to Egypt she 
knew that Antony might play her false, and the fact 
that war had not been declared upon him but upon her 
would give him an easy loophole for escape. To 
counteract the prevailing impression in Italy, Antony 
despatched a large number of agents who were to at- 
tempt to turn popular opinion in his favour, and mean- 
while he disposed his army for the final struggle. He 
had decided to wait for Octavian to attack him, partly 
because he felt confident in the ability of his great fleet 
to destroy the enemy before ever it could land on the 
shores of Greece, and partly because he believed that 
Octavian’s forces would become disaffected long be- 
fore they could be brought across the sea. The state 
of war would be felt in Italy very soon, whereas in 
Greece and Asia Minor it would hardly make any dif- 


5 An earlier eunuch of the same name, it will be remembered, played an 
important part in Cleopatra’s youth. 


344 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ference to the price of provisions. Egypt alone would 
supply enough corn to feed the whole army, while Italy 
would soon starve; and Egypt would provide money 
for the regular payment of the troops, while Octavian 
did not know where to turn for cash. Indeed so great 
was the distress in Italy, and so great the likelihood 
of mutinies in the enemy’s army, that Antony did not 
expect to have to fight a big battle on land. For this 
reason he had felt it safe to leave four of his legions 
at Cyrene, four in Egypt, and three in Syria; and 
he linked up the whole of the sea coast around the 
eastcrn Mediterranean with small garrisons. The 
army which he kept with him in Greece consisted of 
some 100,000 foot and 12,000 horse, a force which 
must certainly have seemed adequate, since it was 
greater than that of the enemy. Octavian had at least 
250 ships of war, 80,000 foot and 12,000 horse. 

When winter approached, Cleopatra and Antony 
advanced with the whole army from Athens to Patre, 
and there went into winter quarters. Patre stood near 
the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, on the Achaian side, 
not much more than 200 miles from the Italian coast. 
The fleet, meanwhile, was sent farther north to the 
Gulf of Ambracia, which formed a huge natural har- 
bour with a narrow entrance; and outposts were placed 
at Corcyra, the modern Corfu, some 70 miles from the 
Italian coast. In the period of waiting which followed, 
when the storms of winter made warfare almost out of 
the question, Antony and Octavian exchanged several 
pugnacious messages. Octavian, constrained by the 
restlessness of his men and the difficulty of providing 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER B45 


for them during the winter, is said to have written to 
Antony asking him not to protract the war, but to come 
over to Italy and fight him at once. He even promised 
not to oppose his disembarkation, but to offer him 
battle only when he was quite prepared to meet him 
with his full forces. Antony replied by challenging 
Octavian to a single combat, although, as he stated, he 
was already an elderly man. This challenge Octavian 
refused to accept, and thereupon Antony invited him 
to bring his army over to the plains to Pharsalia and to 
fight him there, where Julius Cesar and Pompey had 
fought nearly seventeen years before. This offer was 
likewise refused; and therefore the two huge armies 
settled down once more to glare at one another across 
the Ionian Sea. 

Octavian now sent a message to Greece inviting the 
Roman senators who were still with Antony to return 
to Rome where they would be well received; and this 
offer must have found ready ears, though none yet 
dared to act upon it. Several of these senators felt dis- 
gust at their leader’s intemperate habits, and were 
deeply jealous of the power of Cleopatra, whose influ- 
ence did not seem likely to serve the cause of the re- 
public. The declaring of war against the queen and not 
against themselves had touched them sharply and, to 
add to their discomfort in this regard, news now came 
across the sea that Octavian, in making his official sacri- 
fices to the gods at the opening of hostilities, had em- 
ployed the ritual observed before a campaign against a 
foreign enemy. He had stood, as the ancient rites of 
Rome prescribed, before the temple of Bellona in the 


346 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Campus Martius, and, clad in the robes of a Fetial 
priest, had thrown the javelin, as a declaration that 
war was undertaken against an alien enemy. 

Now came disconcerting rumours from the Gulf of 
Ambracia which could not be kept secret. During the 
winter the supplies had run out, and all manner of 
diseases had attacked the rowing-slaves and sailors, the 
result being that nearly a third of their number had 
perished. To fill their places Antony had ordered his 
officers to press into service every man on whom they 
could lay their hands. Peasants, farm hands, harvest- 
ers, ploughboys, donkey drivers, and even common 
travellers had been seized upon and thrust into the 
ships, but still their complements were incomplete, 
and many of them were unfit for action. The news 
caused the greatest anxiety in the camp, and when, in 
March, B.c. 31, the cessation of the storms of winter 
brought the opening of actual. hostilities close at hand, 
there was many a man at Patree who wished with all 
his heart that he were safe in his own country. 

The first blow was struck by Octavian, who sent a 
flying squadron across the open sea to the south coast 
of Greece, under the command of his great friend, 
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. This force seized Methone, 
and appeared to be seeking a landing place for the main 
army; and Antony at once prepared to march down and 
hold the coast against the expected attack. But while 
his eyes were turned in this direction, Octavian slipped 
across with his army from Brindisi and Tarentum to 
Corcyra, and thence to the mainland, marching down 
through Epirus towards the Gulf of Ambracia, thus 


DECLINE OF ANTONY’S POWER = 347 


menacing the ill-manned fleet lying in those waters. 
Antony thereupon hastened northwards with all pos- 
sible speed, and arrived at the promontory of Actium, 
which formed the southern side of the mouth of the 
Gulf, almost at the same moment at which Octavian 
reached the opposite, or northern, promontory. Real- 
ising that an attack was about to be made upon the 
fleet, Antony drew his ships up in battle array, manning 
them where necessary, with legionaries; and thereupon 
Octavian gave up the project of immediate battle. 
Antony then settled himself down on his southern 
promontory where he formed an enormous camp, and a 
few days later he was joined there by Cleopatra. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM AND THE FLIGHT TO EGYPT 


Tue story of the battle of Actium has troubled 
historians of all periods, and no one has been able to 
offer a satisfactory explanation of the startling incidents 
which occurred in it, or of the events which led up to 
them. I am not able to accept the ingenious theory 
set forward by Ferrero, nor is it easy to agree wholly 
with the explanations given by classical authors. In 
the following chapter I relate the events as I think 
they occurred, but of course my interpretation is open 
to question. The reader, however, may refer to the 
early authors to check my statements; and there he 
will find, as no doubt he has already observed in other 
parts of this volume, that while the incidents and facts 
all have the authority of these early writers, the theories 
which explain them, representing my own opinion, are 
frankly open to discussion. 

For the time being Octavian did not care to be at 
too close quarters to Antony, and he therefore fortified 
himself in a position a few miles back from the actual 
entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia. Antony at once 
shipped a part of his army across from Actium to the 
north side of the great harbour’s mouth, and thus 

348 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 349 


placed himself in command of the passage into the 
inland water. Octavian soon threw up impregnable 
earthworks around his camp, and built a wall down 
to the shore of the Ionian Sea, so that the enemy could 
not interfere with the landing of his supplies, all of 
which had to come from across the water. He stationed 
his ships in such a position that they could command 
the entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia; and, these vessels 
proving to be extremely well manned and handled, 
Antony soon found that his own fleet was actually 
bottled up in the Gulf, and could not pass into the 
open sea without fighting every inch of the passage out 
through the narrow fairway. Octavian was thus in 
command of the Ionian Sea, and was free to receive 
provisions or munitions of war day by day from Italy. 
He could not, however, leave his fortified camp, for 
Antony commanded all the country around him. 
Thus, while Octavian blockaded Antony’s fleet in the 
Gulf, Antony besieged Octavian’s army in their camp; 
and while Octavian commanded the open sea and 
obtained his supplies freely from Italy, Antony com- 
manded the land, and received his provisions without 
interruption from Greece. A _ deadlock therefore, 
ensued, and neither side was able to make a hostile 
move. It seems clear to me that a decisive battle 
could only be brought on by one of two manceuvres; 
either Antony must retire from Actium and induce 
Octavian to come after him into Greece, or else his 
fleet must fight its way out of the Gulf and cut off 
Octavian’s supplies, thus starving him into surrender. 
Many of Antony’s generals were of opinion that the 


350 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


former movemert should be undertaken, and they 
pressed him to retire and thus draw Octavian from his 
stronghold. Cleopatra, however, appears to have been 
in favour of breaking the blockade and regaining 
possession of the sea. She may have considered 
Antony’s army to be composed of too many nationali- 
ties to make success on land absolutely assured, and 
any retreat at this moment might easily be misinter- 
preted and might lead to desertions. On the other 
hand, she had confidence in her Egyptian fleet and in 
Antony’s own ships, if, by cutting down their number, 
their crews could be brought up to the full complement; 
and she believed that with, say, 300 vessels, Octavian’s 
blockade could be forced, and his own position sub- 
jected to the same treatment. I gather that this plan, 
however, was hotly opposed by Domitius Ahenobarbus, 
and others; and, since a loss of time was not likely to 
alter the situation to their disadvantage, no movement 
was yet made. 

Some time in June, Antony sent a squadron of cavalry 
round the shores of the Gulf to try to cut off Octavian’s 
water supply, but the move was not attended with 
much success and was abandoned. Shortly after this, 
the deserter Titius defeated a small body of Antony’s 
cavalry, and Agrippa captured a few of his ships which 
had been cruising from stations outside the Gulf; 
whereupon Octavian sent despatches to Rome announc- 
ing these successes as important victories, and stating 
that he had trapped Antony’s fleet within the Gulf. 
He also sent agents ito Greece to try to shake the 
confidence of the inhabitants in his enemy, and these 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 351 


men appear to have been partially successful in their 
endeavours. 

These small victories of Octavian seem to have 
unnerved Antony, and to have had a dispiriting effect 
upon the army. Cleopatra, too, must have been par- 
ticularly depressed by them, for they seemed to be a 
confirmation of the several ominous and inauspicious 
occurrences which had recently taken place. An 
Egyptian soothsayer had once told Antony that his 
genius would go down before that of Octavian; and 
Cleopatra, having watched her husband’s rapid de- 
terioration in the last two years, now feared that the 
man’s words were indeed true. News had lately come 
from Athens that a violent hurricane had torn down 
the statue of Bacchus, the god whom Antony im- 
personated, from a group representing the Battle of the 
Giants; and two colossal statues of Fumenes and 
Attalus, each of which was inscribed with Antony’s 
name, had also been knocked over during the same 
cyclone. This news recalled the fact that a few months 
previously, at Patrae, the temple of Hercules, the an- 
cestor of Antony, had been struck by lightning; and at 
about the same time a small township founded by him 
at Pisaurum, on the east coast of Italy, north of Ancona, 
had been destroyed by an earthquake. These and other 
ill-omened accidents had a very depressing effect on 
Cleopatra’s spirits, and her constant quarrels with 
Antony and his generals seem to have caused her to be 
in a state of great nervous tension. Towards the end 
of July or early in August, when the low-lying ground 
on which their camp was pitched became infested with 


352 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


mosquitoes, and when the damp heat of summer had set 
the tempers of everybody on edge, the quarrels in regard 
to the conduct of the campaign broke out with renewed 
fury. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Dellius, Amyntas, and 
others, again urged Antony to retire inland and to 
fight a pitched battle with Octavian as soon as he 
should come after them. Cleopatra however, still 
appears to have considered that the forcing of the 
blockade was the most important operation to be under- 
taken, and this she urged upon her undecided husband. 
It was of course a risky undertaking, but by reason of 
the very danger it made a strong appeal to Cleopatra’s 
mind. If their fleet could destroy that of Octavian, 
they would have him caught in his stronghold as in a 
trap. They would not even have to wait for the sur- 
render; but, leaving eighty or a hundred thousand men 
to prevent his escape, they might sail over to Italy with 
twenty or thirty thousand legionaries and take pos- 
session of empty Rome. There was not a senator nor 
a military force in the capital, for Octavian had lately 
made the entire Senate in Rome come over to his camp, 
in order to give tone to his proceedings and, when once 
Octavian’s sea-power had been destroyed, Antony and 
Cleopatra would be free to ride unchecked into Rome 
while the enemy was starved into surrender in Greece. 
A single naval battle, and Rome would be theirs! This 
surely, was better than a slow and ponderous retreat 
into the interior. 

Antony, however, could not persuade his generals 
to agree to this. The risk was great, they seem to 
have argued; and even if they were victorious, was he 














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THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 353 


going to march into Rome with Cleopatra by his side? 
The citizens would never stand it, after the stories 
they had heard in regard to the queen’s magical power 
over him. Let her go back to Egypt, nor any longer 
remain to undermine Antony’s popularity. How could 
he appear to the world as a good republican with royal 
Cleopatra’s arm linked in his? By abandoning the 
idea of a naval battle, the Egyptian fleet could be 
dispensed with, and could be allowed to depart to 
Egypt if it succeeded in running the blockade. Cleo- 
patra had supplied ships but hardly any soldiers, and 
a land battle could be fought without her aid, and 
therefore without cause for criticism; nor would Octa- 
vian any longer be able to say that he was waging war 
against Cleopatra and not against Antony. The money 
which she had supplied for the campaign was almost 
exhausted, and thus she was of no further use to the 
cause. Let Antony then give up the projected naval 
battle, and order the queen to go back quickly with 
her ships to her own country; for thus, and thus only, 
could the disaffected republican element in their army 
be brought into line. Cleopatra, they said, had been 
the moving spirit in the war; Cleopatra had supplied 
the money; it was against Cleopatra that Octavian had 
declared war; it was Cleopatra’s name, and the false 
stories regarding her, which had aroused Rome to 
Octavian’s support; it was Cleopatra who was now said 
on all sides to be supreme in command of the whole 
army; and it was of Cleopatra that every senator, every 
vassal king, and every general, was furiously jealous. 
Unless she were made to go, the whole cause was lost. 


354 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Antony seems to have realised the justice of these 
arguments, and to have promised to try to persuade 
his wife to retire to Egypt to await the outcome of the 
war; and he was further strengthened in this resolve 
when even Canidius, who had all along favoured the 
keeping of Cleopatra with the army, now urged him to 
ask her to leave them to fight their own battle. He 
therefore told the queen, it would seem, that he desired 
her to go, pointing out that in this way alone could 
victory be secured. 

Cleopatra, I take it, was furious. She did not trust 
Antony, and she appears to have been very doubtful 
whether he would still champion her cause after victory. 
She even doubted that he would be victorious. He was 
now but the wreck of the man he had once been, for a 
too lifelike impersonation of the god Bacchus had 
played havoc with his nerves and with his character. 
He had no longer the strength and the determination 
necessary for the founding of an imperial throne in 
Rome; and she felt that, even if he were successful in 
arms against Octavian, he would make but a poor 
regent for her son, Ceesarion. Having used her money 
and her ships for his war, he might abandon her cause; 
and the fact that they were fighting for Ceesar’s son and 
heir, which had already been placed in the back- 
ground, might be for ever banished. It must have 
seemed madness for her to leave her husband at this 
critical juncture. In order to prevent further deser- 
tions he would probably proclaim his republican prin- — 
ciples as soon as her back was turned; and, in his 
drunken weakness, he might commit himself so deeply 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 355 


that he would never be able to go back upon his demo- 
cratic promises. Since she was unpopular with his 
generals, he would perhaps at once tell them that she 
was nothing to him; and for the sake of assuring victory, 
he might even divorce her. Of course, it was obvious 
that he was devoted to her, and relied on her in all 
matters, seeming to be utterly lost without her; but, 
for all she knew, his ambition might be stronger than 
his love. She therefore refused absolutely to go; and 
Antony was too kind-hearted, and perhaps too much 
afraid of her anger, to press the matter. 

His talk with her, however, seems to have decided 
him to break the blockade as soon as possible, and at 
the same time to invest Octavian’s lines so that he 
could not escape from the stronghold which would 
become his death-trap. Once master of the sea, he 
would, at any rate, have opened a path for Cleopatra’s 
departure, and she could retire unmolested with her 
fleet to her own country. He therefore hurried on the 
manning of his ships, and at the same time sent Dellius 
and Amyntas into Thrace to recruit a force of cavalry 
to supplement those at his disposal. Cleopatra pointed 
out to him that the ground upon which their camp was 
pitched at Actium was extremely unhealthy, and if 
they remained there much longer the troops would be 
decimated by malaria; and she seems perhaps to have 
urged him to move round to the north of the Gulf of 
Ambracia, in order both to obtain more healthy con- 
ditions for the army and to invest more closely the 
camp of Octavian in preparation for the naval fight. 
Domitius Ahenobarbus was still hotly opposed to this 


3856 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fight; and now, finding that not only was Cleopatra to 
be allowed to remain with the army, but also that her 
plan of breaking the blockade was to be adopted, 
instead of that of the retreat inland, he was deeply 
incensed, and could no longer bear to remain in the 
same camp with the queen. Going on board a vessel, 
therefore, as he said, for the sake of his health, he 
slipped over to Octavian’s Imes and offered his services 
to the enemy. He did not live, however, to enjoy the 
favourable consequences of his change, for, having 
contracted a fever while at Actium, he died before the 
battle of that name was fought. 

This desertion, which occurred probably early in 
August, came as a terrible shock to Antony, and he 
seems to have accused his wife of being the cause of it, 
which undoubtedly she was. This time he insisted 
more vehemently on her leaving the army and retiring 
to Egypt; and thereupon a violent quarrel ensued, which 
lasted, I think, without cessation, during the remainder 
of their stay in Greece. At first, it seems to me, the 
queen positively refused to leave him, and she probably 
accused him of wishing to abandon her cause. With a 
sneer, she may have reminded him that his compact 
with her, and his arrangements for an Egypto-Roman | 
monarchy, were made at a time when he had, to a great 
extent, cut himself off from Rome and when he required 
financial aid; but now he had four hundred respectable 
republican senators to influence him, and, no doubt, 
their support at this juncture was far more valuable 
to him than her own. He had deserted her once before, 
and she was quite prepared for him to do so again. 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 357 


Her anger, mistrust, and unhappiness must have 
distressed Antony deeply, and he would, perhaps, have 
given way once again had not three more desertions 
from his camp taken place. The King of Paphlagonia, 
jealous, apparently, of Cleopatra’s power, slipped 
across to Octavian’s lines, carrying thither an account 
of the dissensions in Antony’s camp. The two others, 
a Roman senator named Quintus Postumius, and an 
Arab chieftain from Emesa, named Iamblichus, were 
both caught; and, to terrify those who might intend to 
go over to the enemy, both were put to death, the one 
being torn to pieces and the other tortured. Every day 
Octavian’s cause was growing in popularity, and 
Antony was being subjected to greater ridicule for his 
subserviency to the little Queen of Egypt, who appeared 
to direct all his councils and who now seemed to frighten 
him by her anger. Octavian’s men were becoming self- 
confident and even audacious. On one occasion while 
Antony, accompanied by an officer, was walking at 
night down to the harbour between the two ramparts 
which he had thrown up to guard the road, some of the 
enemy’s men crept over the wall, and laid in wait for 
him. As they sprang up from their ambush, however, 
they seized Antony’s attendant officer in mistake for 
himself, and, by a rapid flight down the road, he was 
able to escape. 

Thoroughly unnerved by the course events were 
taking, he again ordered the queen to retire to Egypt; 
and at last, stung by Antony’s reproaches, Cleopatra 
made up her mind to go and to take her fleet with her. 
Having formed this decision, she appears to have treat- 


358 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ed Antony with the utmost hostility; and he, being in 
a highly nervous condition, began to fear that she might 
kill him. Her eyes seemed to blaze with anger when 
she looked upon him, and the contempt which she now 
felt for him was shown in the expression of her face. 
He appears to have cowered before her in the manner 
of a naughty boy, and to have told his friends that he 
believed she would murder him in her wrath. On 
hearing this, Cleopatra decided to teach him a lesson 
which he should not forget. One night at supper, she 
caused her goblet to be filled from the same wine-jar 
from which all had been drinking, and having herself 
drunk some of the wine, she handed the cup to Antony 
as though in token of reconciliation; and he, eagerly 
raising 1t to his mouth, was about to place his lips 
where those of the queen had rested a moment before, 
when, as though to add grace to her act, she took the 
wreath of flowers from her hair and dipped it into the 
wine. Antony again lifted the cup, but suddenly 
Cleopatra dashed it from his hand, telling him that the 
wine was poisoned. Antony appears to have protested 
that she was mistaken, since she herself had just drunk 
from the same cup; but Cleopatra calmly explained 
that the wreath which she had dipped into the wine 
as she handed it to him was poisoned, and that she 
had chosen this means of showing him how baseless 
were his fears for his life, for that, did she wish to rid 
herself of him, she could do so at any moment by some 
such subtle means. “I could have killed you at any 
time,”’ she said, “if I could have done without you.” 
The queen, I imagine, now carried herself very 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 359 


proudly and disdainfully, regarding Antony’s insistence 
on her departure as a breach of faith. In her own mind 
she must have feared lest he would actually abandon 
her, and the anxiety in regard to the future of her 
country and dynasty must have gnawed at her heart 
all day and all night; but to him she seems only to have 
shown coldness and contempt, thus driving him to a 
condition of complete wretchedness. He did not dare, 
however, to alter his decision in regard to her departure, 
for he seems to have admitted some of his senators and 
generals into the secret of this coming event, and it 
had much quieted the volcanic atmosphere so long 
prevalent in the camp. Iam of opimion that the plan 
upon which he and his wife had agreed was as follows: 
Having invested Octavian’s lines more closely, and 
having taken all steps to prevent him issuing from his 
stronghold, the pick of Antony’s legionaries would be 
embarked upon as many of the vessels in the Gulf of 
Ambracia as were seaworthy, and these warships 
would force their way out and destroy Octavian’s fleet. 
As soon as this was done, an assault would be made on 
the enemy’s position by sea and land; and Cleopatra, 
taking with her the Egyptian fleet, could then sail 
away to Alexandria, leaving Antony to enter Rome 
alone. 

This scheme, in my opinion, presented the only 
possible means by which the Antonian army could rid 
itself of Egyptian influence. If Cleopatra was made to 
retire overland by way of Asia Minor and Syria, not 
only would her passage through these countries be 
regarded by the inhabitants as a flight, thus causing 


360 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


instant panic and revolt, but also the Egyptian fleet 
would still remain in the Gulf of Ambracia to show by 
its presence that Cleopatra and her kingdom of Egypt 
were yet the main factors in the war. On the other 
hand, if the queen retired by sea with her ships, a 
naval battle designed to force the blockade would 
have to be fought in order to permit her to escape by 
that route. Thus, the republican demand that the 
queen should go to her own country, and Cleopatra’s 
own reiterated proposal that the war should be decided 
by a sea-fight, here concurred in determining Antony 
to stake all upon a naval engagement. 

This being settled, Antony announced to the army 
that the fleet should break the blockade on August 29, 
but the fact that the Egyptian ships were to depart 
immediately after the battle was not made known, save 
toafew. A great many of the vessels were ill-furnished 
for the fight, and were much under-manned; and An- 
tony now ordered these to be burnt, for, though they 
were useless to him, they might be of value to the 
enemy, and might be seized by them while the fleet 
was away scouring the Ionian Sea. Sixty of the best 
Egyptian vessels, and at least three hundred: other 
ships were made ready for the contest; and during these 
preparations it was no easy matter to keep the secret 
of the Egyptian departure from leaking out. To cross 
to Egypt, Cleopatra’s sixty ships required their large 
sails, but these sails would not under ordinary circum- 
stances be taken into battle; and in order that the 


*'The numbers given by the early authors are very contradictory, but 
Plutarch states that Octavian reported the capture of three hundred ships. 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 361 


Egyptian vessels should not be made conspicuous by 
alone preparing for a long voyage, thereby causing 
suspicions to arise, all the fleet was ordered to ship its 
big sails; Antony, therefore, having to explain that 
they would be required in the pursuit of the enemy. 
Another difficulty arose from the fact that Cleopatra 
had to ship her baggage, including her plate and jewels, 
but this was ultimately done under cover of darkness 
without arousing suspicion. 

Many of the generals, not realising that the naval 
battle was largely forced upon Antony by those who 
desired to rid his party of the Egyptians, were much 
opposed to the scheme; and one infantry officer, point- 
ing to the many scars and marks of wounds which his 
body bore, implored Antony to fight upon land. ‘‘O 
General,” he said, ““what have our wounds and our 
swords done to displease you, that you should give 
your confidence to rotten timbers? Let Egyptians 
and Phoenicians fight on the sea; but give us the land, 
where we well know how to die where we stand or else 
gain the victory.”’ Antony, however, gave him no 
reply, but made a motion with his hand as though to 
bid him be of good courage. 

On August 28th, twenty thousand legionaries and 
two thousand archers were embarked upon the ships 
of war? in preparation for the morrow’s battle. The 
vessels were much larger than those of Octavian, some 
of them having as many as ten banks of oars; and it 
seemed likely that victory would be on their side. On 


2 Not upon the sixty Egyptian ships, as Plutarch states; that is an evident 
mistake, as the proportion of numbers per ship will at once show. 


362 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the next day, however, the sea was extremely rough, 
and the battle had to be postponed. The storm proved 
to be of great violence, and all question of breaking the 
blockade had to be abandoned for the next four days. 
The delay was found to be a very heavy strain upon 
the nerves of all concerned, and so great was the 
anxiety of the two important generals, Dellius? and 
Amyntas, that they both deserted to Octavian’s lines, 
the latter taking with him two thousand Galatian 
cavalry. Dellius had probably heard rumours about 
the proposed departure of Cleopatra, and he was able 
to tell Octavian something of the plans for the battle. 
In after years he stated that his desertion was partly 
due to his fear of the queen, for he believed her to be 
angry with him for having once remarked that Antony’s 
friends were served with sour wine, whereas even Sar- 
mentus, Octavian’s delicia, or page, drank Falernian. 
One may understand Cleopatra’s annoyance at this 
hint that money and supplies were running short, 
more especially since this must actually have been 
the fact. 

On September Ist, the storm abated, and in the 
evening Antony went from ship to ship encouraging his 
men. Octavian, informed by Dellius, also prepared for 
battle, embarking eight legions and five pretorian 
cohorts upon his ships of war, which seem to have been 
more numerous, but much smaller, than those of 
Antony. 

The morning of September 2nd was calm, and at an 


3 The fact that Dellius knew something of the plans for the battle, fixes the 
date of his desertion to this period, as Ferrero has pointed out. 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 363 


early hour, Octavian’s workmanlike ships stationed 
themselves about three-quarters of a mile from the 
mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, where they were 
watched by the eyes of both armies. They were formed 
into three divisions, the left wing being commanded by 
Agrippa, the centre by Lucius Arruntius, and the right 
wing by Octavian. At about noon Antony’s huge 
men-o -war began to pass out from the harbour, under 
cover of the troops and engines of war stationed upon 
the two promontories. Octavian seems to have thought 
that it would be difficult to attack them in the straits, 
and therefore he retired out to sea, giving his enemies 
the opportunity of forming up for battle. This was 
speedily done, the fleet being divided, like Octavian’s, 
into three squadrons, C. Sossius moving against Octa- 
vian, Marcus Insteius opposing Arruntius, and Antony 
facing Agrippa. The sixty Egyptian ships, under 
Cleopatra’s command, were the last to leave the Gulf 
and formed up behind the central division. 

Antony appears to have arranged with Cleopatra 
that her ships should give him full assistance in the 
fight, and should sail for Egypt as soon as the victory 
was won. He intended, no doubt, to board her flag- 
ship at the close of the battle and to bid her farewell. 
They had separated that morning, it would seem from 
subsequent events, with anger and bitterness. Cleo- 
patra, I imagine, had once more told him how distaste- 
ful was her coming departure to her, and had shown 
him how little she trusted him. She had bewailed the 
misery of her life and the bitterness of her disillusion- 
ment. She had accused him of wishing to abandon her 


364 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


cause, and she had, no doubt, called him coward and 
traitor. Very possibly, in her anger, she had told him 
that she was leaving him with delight, having found 
him wholly degenerate, and that she hoped never to 
see his face again. Her accusations, I fancy, had stung 
Antony to bitter retorts; and they had departed, each 
to their own flagship, with cruel words upon their lips 
and fury in their minds. Antony’s nature, however, 
always boyish, impulsive, and quickly repentant, could 
not bear with equanimity so painful a scene with the 
woman to whom he was really devoted, and as he 
passed out to battle he must have been consumed by 
the desire to ask her forgiveness. The thought, if I 
understand him aright, was awful to him that they 
should thus separate in anger; and being probably a 
little intoxicated, the contemplation of his coming 
loneliness reduced him almost to tears. He was perhaps 
a little cheered by the thought that when next he saw 
her the battle would probably be won, and he would 
appear to her in the réle of conqueror—a theatrical 
situation which made an appeal to his dramatic in- 
stincts; yet, in the meantime, I think he was as miser- 
able as any young lover who had quarrelled with his 
sweetheart. | 

The battle was opened by the advance of Antony’s 
left wing, and Agrippa’s attempt to outflank it with his 
right. Antony’s other divisions then moved forward, 
and the fight became general. 

“When they engaged,” writes Plutarch, ‘‘there was no 


ramming or charging of one ship into another, because 
Antony’s vessels, by reason of their great bulk, were incap- 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 365 


able of the speed to make the stroke effectual, and, on the 
other side, Octavian’s ships dared not charge, prow to prow, 
into Antony’s, which were all armed with solid masses and 
spikes of brass, nor did they care even to run in on their 
sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces 
of timber, fastened together with iron bolts, that their own 
vessels’ bows would certainly have been shattered upon them. 
Thus the engagement resembled a land fight, or, to speak 
more properly, the assault and defence of a fortified place; 
for there were always three or four of Octavian’s vessels 
around each one of Antony’s, pressing upon them with 
spears, Javelins, poles, and several inventions of fire which 
they flung into them, Antony’s men using catapults also to 
hurl down missiles from their wooden towers.” 


The fight raged for three or four hours, but gradually 
the awful truth was borne in upon Antony and Cleo- 
patra, that Octavian’s little ships were winning the day. 
Antony’s flagship was so closely hemmed in on allasides 
that he himself was kept busily occupied, and he had 
no time to think clearly. But as, one by one, his ships 
were fired, sunk, or captured, his desperation seems to 
have become more acute. If his fleet were defeated 
and destroyed, would his army stand firm? That was 
the question which must have drummed in his head, as 
in an agony of apprehension he watched the confused 
battle and listened to the clash of arms and the cries 
and shouts of the combatants. Cleopatra, meanwhile, 
after being subjected to much battering by the enemy, 
had perhaps freed her flagship for a moment from the 
attentions of Octavian’s little warships, and, in manceu- 
vring for a better position, she was able to obtain a full 
view of the situation. With growing horror she ob- 
served the struggle around Antony’s flagship, and heard 


3866 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the cheers of the enemy as some huge vessel struck or 
was set on fire. Her Egyptian fleet had probably suf- 
fered heavily, though her sailors would hardly have 
fought with the same audacity as had those under 
Antony’s command. As she surveyed the appalling 
scene, no doubt remained in her mind that Octavian 
had beaten them, and she must even have feared that 
Antony would be killed or captured. The anxieties 
which had harassed her overwrought brain during the 
last few weeks as to her husband’s intentions in regard 
to her position and that of her son Cesarion, were now 
displaced by the more frightful thought that the oppor- 
tunity would never be given to him of proving his 
constancy; for, here and now, he would meet his end. 
Her anger against him for his vacillation, her contempt 
for the increasing weakness of his character, and her 
misgivings in regard to his ability to direct his forces 
in view of the growing intemperance of his habits, 
were now combined in the one staggering certainty 
that defeat and ruin awaited him. He had told her to 
go back to Egypt, he had ordered her to take herself 
off with her fleet at the end of the battle. That end 
seemed to her already in sight. It was not from a 
riotous scene of victory, however, that she was to retire, 
nor was she to carry over to Alexandria the tidings of 
her triumph with which to cover the shame of her 
banishment from her husband’s side; but now she 
would have to sail away from the spectacle of the wreck 
of their cause, and free herself by flight from a man 
who, no longer champion of her rights, had become 
an encumbrance to the movement of her ambitions. 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 367 


In the late afternoon, while yet the victory was 
actually undecided, although there could have been 
no hope for the Antonian party left in Cleopatra’s 
weary mind, a strong wind from the north sprang up, 
blowing straight from unconquered Rome towards 
distant Egypt. The sea grew rough, and the waves 
beat against the sides of the queen’s flagship, causing 
an increase of confusion in the battle. As the wind 
blew in her face, suddenly, it seems to me, the thought 
came to her that the moment had arrived for her 
departure. Antony had told her with furious words to 
go; why, then, should she wait? In another hour, prob- 
ably, he would be captured or killed, and she, too, 
would be taken prisoner, to be marched in degradation 
to the Capitol whereon she had hoped to sit enthroned. 
She would pay her husband back in his own coin; she 
would desert him as he had deserted her. She would 
not stand by him to await an immediate downfall. 
_ Though he was sodden with wine, she herself was still 
full of life. She would rise above her troubles, as she 
had always risen before. She would cast him off, and 
begin her life once more. Her throne should not be 
taken from her at one blow. She would, at this mo- 
ment, obey Antony’s command and go; and in distant 
Egypt she would endeavour to start again in the pursuit 
of that dynastic security which had proved so intangible 
a vision. . 

Having arrived at this decision she ordered the 
signal to be given to her scattered ships, and hoisting 
sail, she passed right through the combatants, and 
made off down the wind, followed by her damaged 


368 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fleet. At that moment, it seems, Antony had freed his 
flagship from the surrounding galleys, and thus obtained 
an uninterrupted view of the queen’s departure. His 
feelings must have overwhelmed him—anger, misery, 
remorse, and despair flooding his confused mind. 
Cleopatra was leaving him to his fate; she was obeying 
the order which he ought never to have given her, and 
he would not see her face again. All the grace, the 
charm, the beauty which had so enslaved him, was 
being taken from him; and alone he would have to face 
the horrors of probable defeat. He had relied of late 
so entirely upon her that her receding ships struck a 
kind of terror into his degenerate mind. It was intcl- 
erable to him, moreover, that she should leave him 
without one word of farewell, and that the weight of 
his cruelty and anger should be the last impression 
received by her. He could not let her depart unrecon- 
ciled and unforgiving; he must go after her, if only to see 
her for a moment. Yet what did it matter if he did 
not return to the battle? There was little hope of 
victory. His fevered and exhausted mind saw no 
favourable incident in the fight which raged around 
him. Disgrace and ruin stared him in the face: and the 
sooner he fled from the horror of defeat the better 
would be his chance of retaining his reason. 


3 


“Here it was,” says Plutarch, “that Antony showed 
to all the world that he was no longer actuated by the 
thoughts and motives of a commander or a man, or indeed, 
by his own judgment at all; and what was once said in jest, 
that the soul of a lover lives in the loved one’s body, he 
proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he had been born 


ag 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 369 


part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she 
went, as soon as he saw her ships sailing away, he abandoned 
all that were fighting and laying down their lives for him, 
and followed after her.” 


Hailing one of his fastest galleys, he quickly boarded 
her and told the captain to go after Cleopatra’s flagship 
with all possible speed. He took with him only two 
persons, Alexander the Syrian, and a certain Scellias. 
It was not long before the galley, rowed by five banks 
of oars, overhauled the retreating Egyptians, and 
Cleopatra then learnt that Antcny had followed her 
and had abandoned the fight. Her feelings may be 
imagined. Her leaving the battle had, then, terminated 
the struggle, and her retreat had removed the last hope 
of victory from the Antonians. Antony was a ruined 
and defeated man, and a speedy death was the best 
thing he could hope for; but not so easily was she to be 
rid of him. He was going to cling to her to the end; she 
would never be able to shake herself clear of him, but, 
drowning, he would drag her down with him. Yet he 
was her husband, and she could not abandon him in 
defeat as in victory he had wished to abandon her. 
She therefore signalled to him to come aboard and 
_ having done this, she retired to her cabin, refusing to 
see him or speak to him. Antony, having been helped 
on to the deck, was too dazed to ask to be taken to her, 
and too miserable to wish to be approached by her. 
He walked, as in a dream, to the prow of the ship, and 
there seating himself, buried his face in his hands, utter- 
ing not a word. 

Thus some hours passed, but after it had grown dark 


870 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the beat of the oars of several galleys was heard behind 
them, and presently the hull of the foremost vessel 
loomed out of the darkness. The commotion on board 
and the shouts across the water aroused Antony. Fora 
moment he seems to have thought that the pursuing 
ships were bringing him some message from Actium— 
perhaps that the tide of battle had turned in his favour. 
He therefore ordered the captain to turn about to 
meet them, and to be ready to give battle if they 
belonged to the enemy; and, standing in the prow, he 
called across the black waters: “‘ Who is this that follows 
Antony?” Through the darkness a voice responded: 
“Tam Eurycles, the son of Lachares, come to revenge 
my father’s death.”’ Antony had caused Lachares to 
be beheaded for robbery, although he came of the 
noblest family in the Peloponnese; and his son had 
fitted out a galley at his own expense and had sworn to ~ 
avenge his father. Eurycles could now be seen standing 
upon his deck, and handling a lance as though about 
to hurl it; but a moment later, by some mistake which 
must have been due to the darkness, he had charged 
with terrific force into another Egyptian vessel which 
was sailing close to the flagship. The blow turned her 
round, and in the darkness and confusion which fol- 
lowed, Cleopatra’s captain was able to get away. The 
other vessel, however, was captured, together with a 
great quantity of gold plate and rich furniture which 
she was carrying back to Egypt. 

When the danger was passed, Antony sat himself 
down once more in the prow, nor did he move from 
that part of the ship for three whole days. Hour after 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 371 


hour he sat staring out to sea, his hands idly folded 
before him, his mind dazed by his utter despair. By 
his own folly he had lost everything, and he had carried 
down with him in his fall all the hope, all the ambition, 
and all the fortune of Cleopatra. It is surprising that 
he did not at once put an end to his life, for his misery 
was pitiable; yet, when at last the port of Tenarus 
was reached, at the southern end of the Greek penin- 
sula, he was still seated at the prow, his eyes fixed 
before him. At length, however, Iras, Charmion, and 
other of Cleopatra’s women induced the queen to 
invite him to her cabin; and after much persuasion 
they consented to speak to each other, and, later, to 
sup and sleep together. Cleopatra could not but pity 
her wretched husband, now so sobered and terribly 
conscious of the full meaning of his position; and I 
imagine that she gave him what consolation she could. 4 

As their ship lay at anchor, several vessels came into 
the harbour, bringing fugitives from Actium; and these 
reported to him that his fleet was entirely destroyed or 
captured, more than five thousand of his men having 


4 Dion Cassius states (though he afterwards contradicts himself by speaking 
of the queen’s panic) that Antony had agreed to fly to Egypt with Cleopatra, 
and this view is upheld by Ferrero, Bouché-Leclerq, and others; but I do not 
consider it probable. One can understand Antony flying after the depart- 
ing queen in the agony and excitement of the moment; but it is difficult to 
believe that such a movement was the outcome of 2 carefully considered plan 
of action, for all are agreed that previous to the battle of Actium his chances 
of success had been very fair. If the two had arranged to retire to Egypt 
together, why was Cleopatra’s treasure, but not his own, shipped; and why did 
they refuse to speak to one another for three whole days? Ferrero thinks that 
he had arranged amicably with Cleopatra to retire to Egypt with her, and that 
the naval battle had not gone much against him; but surely it is difficult to 
suppose that he would deliberately desert his huge army and his undefeated 
nayy for strategic reasons. 


$72 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


been killed, but that the army stood firm and had not 
at once surrendered. At this news, Cleopatra, who 
had not been wholly crushed under the weight of her 
misfortunes, seems to have advised Antony to try to 
save some remnant of his forces, and to send messengers 
through Macedonia into Asia Minor. This he did; and 
then, sending for those of his friends who had come into 
the port, he begged them to leave him and Cleopatra 
to their fate, and to give their whole attention to their 
own safety. He and the queen handed to the fugitives 
a large sum of money and numerous dishes and cups 
of gold and silver wherewith to purchase their security; 
and he wrote letters in their behalf to his steward at 
Corinth, that he should provide for them until they 
had made their peace with Octavian. In deep dejec- 
tion these defeated officers attempted to refuse the 
gifts, but Antony, pressing them to accept, “cheered 
them,” as Plutarch says, “with all the goodness and 
so that they could not refrain 
from tears. At length the fleet put out to sea once 


399 


humanity imaginable, 


more, and set sail for the coast of Egypt, arriving many 
days later at Parzetonium, a desolate spot some 160 
miles west of Alexandria, where a small Roman garrison 
was stationed.’ Here Antony decided to stay for a 
time in hiding, while the braver Cleopatra went on to 
the capital to face her people; and for the next few — 
weeks he remained in the great solitude of this desert 
station. A few mud huts, a palm tree or two, and a 
little fort constituted the dreary settlement, which in 
the damp heat of September must have presented a 


5 Scholz: Reise zwischen Alex. und Paretonium. 


THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM 373 


colourless scene of peculiarly depressing aspect. This 
part of the coast is absolutely barren, and only those 
who have visited these regions in the summer time 
can realise the strange melancholy, the complete loneli- 
ness, of this sun-scorched outpost. The slow, breaking 
waves beat upon the beach with the steady insistence 
of a tolling bell which counts out a man’s life; the desert 
rolls back from the bleak sea-shore, carrying the eye 
to the leaden haze of the far horizon; and overhead the 
sun beats down from a sky which is, as it were, deadened 
by the heat. In surroundings such as these heart- 
broken Antony remained for several weeks, daily wan- 
dering along the beach accompanied only by two 
friends, one, a certain Aristocrates, a Greek rhetorician, 
and the other the Roman soldier Lucilius, who, fight- 
ing on the side of the enemy at Philippi, as we have 
read, had heroically prevented the capture of the 
defeated Brutus, and had been pardoned by Antony as 
a reward for his courage, remaining thereafter, and until 
the last, his devoted friend. 

At length one of his ships, putting into the little 
port, seems to have brought him the news of events at 
Actium. After his flight the battered. remnant of his 
fleet, having continued the fight until sunset, sailed 
back into the Gulf of Ambracia; and next day Octavian’ 
invited them and the army to surrender on easy terms. 
No one, however, would believe that Antony had fled, 
and the offer was refused. Next day, however, some 
of the vassal kings laid down their arms, and, after a 
week of suspense, Canidius fled. Part of the legions 
scattered into Macedonia, and on September 9th the 


374 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


remainder surrendered, together with the fleet. Octa- 
vian then sailed round to Athens, and there received 
the submission of every city in Greece, with the excep- 
tion of Corinth. He at once began a general massacre 
of Antony’s adherents, and, to save their skins, the 
townspeople in every district heaped honours upon the 
conqueror, erecting statues to him and decreeing him 
all manner of civic distinctions. Shortly after this, a 
messenger reached Antony from the west stating that 
the legions left in north Africa had also gone over to 
Octavian; and thereupon he attempted to commit 
suicide. He was, however, restrained by his two faith- 
ful friends, and in the deepest dejection he was at last 
persuaded by them to sail for Alexandria, once more to 
comfort himself with the presence of Cleopatra. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
CLEOPATRA’S ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 


CrusHED and broken by her misfortunes, it might 
have been expected that Cleopatra would now give up 
the fight. She, however, could not yet bring herself 
to believe that her cause was hopeless. On her voyage 
across the Mediterranean she seems to have pulled 
herself together after the first shock of defeat; and, 
with that wonderful recuperative power, of which we 
have already seen many instances in her life, she 
appears, so to speak, to have regained her feet, stand- 
ing up once more, eager and defiant, to face the world. 
The defeat of Antony, though it postponed for many 
years all chance of obtaining a footing in Rome, did 
not altogether preclude that possibility. He would 
now probably kill himself, and though the thought of 
his suicide must have been very distressing to her, she 
could but feel that she would be well rid of him. A 
drunken and discredited outlaw with a price upon his 
head, was not a desirable consort for a queen; and he 
had long since ceased to make an appeal to any quality, 
in her, save to her pity. Octavian would hunt him 
down, and would not rest until he had driven him to 
the land of the shades; but she herself might possibly 

375 


376 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


be spared and her throne be saved in recognition of the 
fact that she had been the great Dictator’s “wife.” 
Then, some chance occurrence, such as the death of 
Octavian, might give her son Cesarion the opportunity 
of putting himself forward once more as Cesar’s heir. 

Antony was now a terrible encumbrance. His 
presence with her endangered her own life, and, what 
was more important, imperilled the existence of her 
royal dynasty. Had he not the courage, like defeated 
Cato at Utica, like her uncle Ptolemy of Cyprus, like 
Brutus after Philippi, and like hundreds of others, to 
kill himself and so end his misfortunes? It is to be 
remembered that suicide after disaster was a doctrine 
emphatically preached throughout the civilised world 
at this time, and so frequently was it practised that it 
was felt to be far less terrible than we are now accus- 
tomed to think it. The popular spectacle of gladiatorial 
fights, the many wars conducted in recent years, and 
the numerous political murders and massacres, had 
made people very familiar with violent death. The 
case of Arria, the wife of Peetus, is an illustration of 
the light manner in which the termination of life was 
regarded. Her husband having been condemned to 
death, Arria determined to anticipate the executioner; 
and therefore, having driven a dagger into her breast, 
she coolly handed the weapon to him, with the casual 
words, “‘ Paete non dole,” “It isn’t painful.” + I do not 
think, therefore, that Cleopatra need be blamed if she 
now hoped that Antony would make his exit from the 
stage of life. 

t Pliny, Epist,"iii. 16. 














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ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 377 


Her fertile brain turned to the consideration of other 
means of holding her throne should Octavian’s clemency 
not be extended to her. Her dominant hope was now 
the keeping of Egypt independent of Rome. The 
founding of an Egypto-Roman Empire having been 
indefinitely postponed by the defeat at Actium, her 
whole energies would have to be given to the retention 
of some sort of crown for her son. The dominions 
which Antony had given her she could hardly expect 
to hold; but for Egypt, her birthright, she must fight 
while breath remained in her body. Under this in- 
spiration her thoughts turned to the Orient, to Media, 
Persia, Parthia and India. Was there not some means 
of forming an alliance with one or all of these distant 
countries, thereby strengthening her position? Her 
son, Alexander Helios, was prospective King of Media. 
Could not she find in Persia or India an extension of 
the dominions which she could hand on to Cesarion? 
And could not some great amalgamation of these 
nations, which had never been conquered by Rome, 
be effected? 

I imagine that her thoughts ran in these channels as 
she sailed over the sea; but when she had dropped 
Antony at Parzetonium and was heading for Alexandria, 
the more immediate question of her entry into the 
capital must have filled her mind. It was essential to 
prevent the news of the defeat from being spread in 
the capital until after she had once more obtained 
control of affairs. She therefore seems to have arranged 
to sail into the harbour some days before the arrival of 
the fleet, and she caused her flagship to be decorated as 


378 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


though in celebration of a victory. Her arrival took 
place at about the end of September, s.c. 31; and, 
with music playing, sailors dancing, and pennants 
flying, the ship passed under the shadow of the white 
Pharos and entered the Great Harbour. Having 
moored the vessel at the steps of the Palace, Cleopatra 
was carried ashore in royal state, and was soon safely 
ensconced behind the walls of the Lochias. She 
brought, no doubt, written orders from Antony to the 
legions stationed in Alexandria; and, relying on the 
loyalty of these troops, she soon took the sternest 
measures to prevent any revolt or rioting in the city as 
the news of the disaster began to filter through. Sev- 
eral prominent citizens who attempted to stir up 
trouble were promptly arrested and put to death: and 
by the time that full confirmation of the news of the 
defeat had arrived, Cleopatra was in absolute control 
of the situation. | 

She now began to carry out her schemes in regard 
to the East, m pursuance of which her first step was, 
naturally, the confirmation of her treaty with the King 
of Media. It will be remembered that the elder son of 
Cleopatra and Antony, Alexander Helios, had been 
married to the King of Media’s daughter, on the under- 
standing, apparently, that he should be heir to the 
kingdoms of Media and Armenia. The little princess 
was now living at Alexandria; and it will be recalled 
that Artavasdes, the dethroned King of Armenia, the 
greater part of whose kingdom had been handed over 
to Media, remained a prisoner in the Egyptian capital, 
where he had been incarcerated since the Triumph in 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 379 


B.c. 34, three years previously. The defeat of Antony, 
however, would probably cause the reinstatement of 
the rulers deposed by him; and it seemed very probable 
that Octavian would restore Artavasdes to his lost 
kingdom, and that Media, on the other hand, by reason 
of its support of the Antonian party, would be stripped 
of as much territory as the Romans dared to seize. In 
order to prevent this by removing the claimant to the 
Armenian throne, and perhaps owing to some attempt 
on the part of Artavasdes to escape or to communicate 
with Octavian, Cleopatra ordered him to be put to 
death; and she thereupon sent an embassy to Media 
bearing his head to the king as a token of her good 
faith.2 I think it is probable that at the same time 
she sent the little Alexander and his child-wife Iotapa 
to the Median court in order that they might there live 
in safety; and there can be little doubt that she made 
various proposals to the king for joint action. 

She then began an undertaking which Plutarch 
describes as “a most bold and wonderful enterprise.”’ 
The northernmost inlet of the Red Sea, the modern 
Gulf of Suez, was separated from the waters of the 
Mediterranean by a belt of low-lying desert not more 
than thirty-five miles in breadth. Across the northern 
side of this isthmus the Pelusian branch of the Nile 
passed from the Delta down to the Mediterranean. 
Somewhat further south lay the Lakes of Balah and 
Timsah, and between these and the Gulf of Suez lay 


2In a very similar manner Herod, who had taken the part of Antony, and 
who now feared that Octavian would dethrone him in favour of the earlier 
sovereign, Hyrcanus, put that claimant to death, so that Octavian, as Josephus 
indicates, should not find it easy to fill Herod’s place. | 


380 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


the so-called Bitter Lakes. These pieces of water had 
been linked together by a canal opened nearly five 
hundred years previously by the great Persian con- 
queror, Darius I, who had thus sent his ships through 
from one sea to the other by a route not far divergent 
from that of the modern Suez Canal. King Ptolemy 
Philadelphus, three hundred years later, had re-opened 
the waterway, and had built a great system of locks at 
its southern end, near the fortress of Clysma; * but 
now a large part of the canal had become blocked up 
once more by the encroaching sand, and any vessel 
which had to be transported from the Mediterranean 
to the Red Sea would have to be dragged for several 
miles over the desert. In spite of the enormous labour 
involved, however, Cleopatra determined to transfer 
immediately all her battleships which had survived 
Actium to the Red Sea, where they would be safe from 
the clutches of Octavian, and would be in a position to 
sail to India or to southern Persia whenever she might 
require them to do so. She also began with startling 
energy to build other vessels at Suez, in the hope of 
there fitting out an imposing fleet. Plutarch states 
simply that her object was to go “with her soldiers and 
her treasure to secure herself a home where she might 
live m peace, far away from war and slavery”; but, 
viewing the enterprise in connection with the embassy 
to Media, it appears to me that she had determined to 
put into partial execution the schemes of which she 
seems to have talked with Julius Cesar while he was 


3] found the remains of this fortress on an island behind the Governorat 
at Suez. 


—— 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 381 


staying with her in Alexandria,‘ in regard to the con- 
quest of the East. 

Media, Parthia and India were all outside the in- 
fluence of Rome. Of these countries Media was now 
bound to Egypt by the closest ties of blood, while India 
was engaged in a thriving trade with Cleopatra’s king- 
dom. Parthia, now the enemy of Media, lay some- 
where between these vast lands; and if the Egyptian 
fleet could sail round the coasts of Arabia and effect a 
junction with the Median armies in the Persian Gulf, 
some sort of support might be given to the allies by 
the Indian States, and Parthia could be conquered or 
frightened into joming the confederacy. Syria and 
Armenia could then be controlled, and once more the 
fight with the West might be undertaken. In the 
meantime these far countries offered a safe hiding-place 
for herself and her family; and having, as I suppose, 
despatched her son Alexander to his future kmgdom of 
Media, she now began to consider the sending of her 
beloved Cesarion to India,‘ there to prepare the way 
for the approach of her fleet. 

In these great schemes Antony played no part. 
During their undertaking he was wandering about the 
desolate shores of Parzetonium, engrossed in his mis- 
fortunes and bemoaning the ingratitude of his generals 
and friends whom, in forgetfulness of his own behaviour 
at Actium, he accused of deserting him. Cleopatra, as 
she toiled at the organisation of her new projects, and 


4 Page 124. 
5 Plutarch definitely states this, and I here use the fact as one of the main 
arguments in my suppositions in regard to Cleopatra’s plans. 


382 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


struggled by every means, fair or foul, to raise money 
for the great task, must have heartily wished her 
husband out of the way; and it must have been with 
very mixed feelings that she presently received the 
news of his approach. On his arrival, ‘perhaps in 
November, he was astonished at the queen’s activities; 
but, being opposed to the idea of keeping up the 
struggle and of setting out for the East, he tried to 
discourage her by talking hopefully about the loyalty of 
the various garrisons of whose desertion he had not 
yet heard. He seems also to have pointed out to her 
that some sort of peace might be made with Octavian, 
which would secure her throne to her family; and, in 
one way and another, he managed to dishearten her 
and to dull her energies. He himself desired now to 
retire from public life, and to take up his residence in 
some city, such as Athens, where he might live in the 
obscurity of private citizenship. He well knew the 
contempt in which Cleopatra held him, and at this 
time he thought it would be best, in the long run, if he 
left her to her fate. At all events, he seems to have 
earnestly hoped that she would not expect him to set 
out on any further adventures; and in this his views 
must have met hers, for she could have had no use for 
him. Her son, Cesarion, was growing to manhood, 
and in the energy of his youth he would be worth a 
hundred degenerate Antonys. . 
An unexpected check, however, was put to her 
schemes, and once again misfortune seemed to dog 
her steps. The Nabathzan Arabs from the neighbour- 
hood of Petra, being on bad terms with the Egyptians, 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 383 


raided the new docks at Suez, and, driving off the 
troops stationed there, burnt the first galleys which 
had been dragged across from the Mediterranean and 
those which were being built in the docks. Cleopatra 
could not spare troops enough to protect the work, 
and therefore the great enterprise had to be abandoned. 

Shortly after this Canidius himself arrived in 
Alexandria, apparently bringing the news that all 
Antony’s troops in all parts of the dominions had sur- 
rendered to Octavian, and that nothing now remained 
to him save Egypt and its forces. Thereupon, by the 
code of honour then in recognition, Antony ought most 
certainly to have killed himself; but a new idea had 
entered his head, appealing to his sentimental and 
theatrical nature. He decided that he would not die, 
but would live, like Timon of Athens, the enemy of all 
men. He would build himself a little house, the walls 
buffeted by the rolling swell of the sea; and there in 
solitude he would count out the days of his life, his 
hand turned against all men. There was a pier jutting 
out into the Great Harbour ° just to the west of the 
Island of Antirrhodos, close to the Forum and the 
Temple of Neptune. Though a powerful construction, 
some three hundred yards long, it does not appear to 
have been then in use; and Antony hit upon the idea of 
repairing it and building himself a little villa at its 
extreme end, wherein he might dwell in solitude. 
Cleopatra was far too much occupied with the business 


6 JT do not think it could have been begun to be built at this time, although 
Plutarch says so; it would have taken many months to complete. It was more 
probably already in existence. 


384 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of life to care what her husband did; and she seems to. 
have humoured him as she would a child, and to have 
caused a nice little house to be built for him on this 
site, which, in honour of the misanthrope whom Antony 
desired to emulate, she named the Timonium. It 
appears that she was entirely estranged from him at 
this time, and he was, no doubt, glad enough to remove 
himself from the scorn of her eyes and tongue. From 
his new dwelling he could look across the water to 
Cleopatra’s Palace; and at night the blaze of the Pharos 
beacon, and the many gleaming windows on the Lochias 
Promontory and around the harbour, all reflected with 
the stars in the dark water, must have formed a spec- 
tacle romantic enough for any dreamer. In the day- 
time he could watch the vessels entering or leaving the 
port; and behind him the noise and bustle of Cleo- 
patra’s busy Alexandrians was wafted to his ears to 
serve as a correct subject for his Timonian curses. 
The famous Timon, I need hardly say, was a citizen 
of Athens, who lived during the days of the Peloponne- 
sian war, and figures in the comedies otf Aristophanes 
and Plato. He heartily detested his fellow-men, his 
only two associates being Alcibiades, whom he esteemed 
because he was likely to do so much mischief to Athens, 
and Apemantus, who also was a confirmed misanthrope. 
Once when Timon and Apemantus were celebrating a 
drinking festival alone together, the latter, wishing to 
show how much he appreciated the fact that no other 
of his hated fellow-men was present, remarked: “What 
a pleasant little party, Timon!” “Well, it would be,” 
replied Timon, “if you were not here.”” Upon another 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 385 


occasion, during an assembly in the public meeting- 
place, Timon mounted into the speaker’s place and 
addressed the crowd. ‘“‘Men of Athens,” he said, 
“I have a little plot of ground, and in it grows a fig- 
tree, from the branches of which many citizens have 
been pleased to hang themselves; and now, having 
resolved to build on that site, I wish to announce it 
publicly, that any of you who may so wish, may go 
and hang yourselves there before I cut it down.”’ Before 
his death he composed two epitaphs, one of which 
reads— 


Timon, the misanthrope, am I below, 
Go, and revile me, stranger—only go: 


The other, which was inscribed upon his tomb, reads— 


Freed from a tedious life, I lie below, 
Ask not my name, but take my curse and go. 


Such was the man whom Antony now desired to 
imitate; and for the present the fallen Autocrator may 
be left seated in glum solitude, while Cleopatra’s eager 
struggle for her throne occupies our attention. The 
queen’s activities were now directed to urgent affairs 
of state. She engaged herself in sending embassies to 
the various neighbouring kingdoms in the attempt to 
confirm her earlier friendships. Alexandria and Egypt 
had to be governed with extreme firmness, in order to 
prevent any insurrections or riots in these critical days; 
and, at the same time, her subjects had to be heavily 
saxed, so that she might raise money for her projects. 
The task of government must have been peculiarly 


3886 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


anxious, and the dread of the impending reckoning 
with Octavian hung over her like a dark cloud. It was 
quite certain that Octavian would presently invade 
Egypt; but for the moment he was prevented from 
doing so, mainly by financial embarrassments. After 
his visit to Athens, he had crossed into Asia Minor, 
and now he was making arrangements for an advance 
through Syria to Egypt, as soon as he should have 
collected enough money for the expedition. 

Towards the close of the year B.c. 31, the Jewish 
King Herod seems to have come to Alexandria to dis- 
cuss the situation with Antony, his former friend and 
patron. Herod’s dislike of Cleopatra, and his desire to 
put her to death when she was passing through his 
country, will be recalled; 7 and now, after paying the 
necessary compliments to the queen, he appears to 
have engaged himself in earnest conversation with 
Antony, perhaps visiting him in his sea-girt hermitage. 
Josephus tells us that he urged the fallen Triumvir to 
arrange for the assassination of Cleopatra, declaring 
that only by so doing could he hope to have his life 
spared by Octavian. Antony, however, would not 
entertain this proposal, for, though anxious to escape 
his impending doom, he was not prepared to do so at 
the cost of his wife. Herod’s object, of course, was to 
rid his horizon of the fascinating queen, who might very 
possibly play upon Octavian’s sympathies and retain 
her Egyptian and Syrian dominions, thus remaining 
an objectionable and exacting neighbour to the king- 
dom of Judea. But failing to obtain Antony’s co- 

7 Page 292. 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 387 


operation in this plot, he returned to Jerusalem, and 
presently sailed for Rhodes to pay his respects to 
Octavian. Antony, hearing of his intention, sent after 
him a certain Alexis of Laodicea, to urge him not to 
abandon his cause. This Alexis had been instrumental 
in persuading Antony to divorce Octavia, and Cleopatra 
had often used him in urging her husband to actions in 
regard to which he was undetermined; but he now 
showed the misapplication of the trust placed in him 
both by Antony and the queen, for he did not return 
to Egypt from Herod’s court, going on instead to place 
himself at the disposal of Octavian. His connection 
with Octavia’s divorce, however, had not been for- 
gotten by her revengeful brother, and his treachery 
was rewarded by a summary death. Herod, mean- 
while, by boldly admitting that he had been Antony’s 
friend, but was now prepared to change his allegiance, 
managed to win the favour of the conqueror, and his 
throne was not taken from him, although practically 
all the other kings and princes who had assisted Antony 
were dispossessed. 

About the beginning of February B.c. 30, Octavian 
returned to Italy to quell certain disturbances arising 
from his inability to pay his disbanded troops, and 
there he stayed about a month, sailing once more for 
Asia Minor early in March. Dion tells us that the news 
of his voyage to Rome, and that of his return to Asia 
Minor, were received simultaneously in Alexandria, 
»robably late in April; but I think it very unlikely that 
the news of the first voyage was so long delayed, and, 
at any rate, some rumours of Octavian’s retirement 


388 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to Rome must have filtered through to Cleopatra 
during the month of March. 

The news of this respite once more fired the queen 
with hope, and she determined to make the best pos- 
sible use of this precious gift of time. It will be remem- 
bered that her son, Ceesarion, if I am not in error, was 
born at the beginning of July, B.c. 47; * but a short 
time afterwards, some eighty days were added to the 
calendar in order to correct the existing inexactitude, ° 
the real anniversary of the boy’s birthday thereby 
being made to fall at about the middle of April.t° The 
preparations for the celebration in this year, B.c. 30, 
of his seventeenth birthday, were thus beginning to be 
put into motion at the time when Octavian was still 
thought to be struggling in Rome with his discontented 
troops. Cleopatra therefore determined to mark the 
festival by very great splendour, and to celebrate it 
more particularly by a public declaration of the fact 
that Ceesarion was now of age. I do not think it can 
be determined with certainty whether or not the 
seventeenth birthday was the customary age at which 
the state of manhood was supposed to be reached by 
an Egyptian sovereign, but it may certainly be said 
that the coming of age was seldom, if ever, postponed 
to a later period. Cleopatra seems to have wished to 


8 Page 139. 9 Page 157. 

t©J do not think that the celebrations of this anniversary which now took 
place could possibly have occurred later than the middle of April, and there- 
fore Cesarion could not have been born later than the beginning of July, an 
argument which bears on the length of Julius Cexsar’s stay in Egypt, dis- 
cussed on page 137. It seems always to have been thought that the holding 
of the anniversary this year was ante-dated for political reasons, but it will be 
seen that the actual date was adhered to. 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 389 


make a very particular point of this fact of her son’s 
majority, which would demonstrate to the Alexan- 
drians, as Dion says, “that they now had a man as 
king.” Letthe public think, if they were so minded, 
that she herself was a defeated and condemned woman; 
but from this time onwards they had a grown man to 
lead them, a son of the divine Julius Cesar, for whose 
rights she had fought while he was a boy, but who was 
henceforth capable of defending himself. Whatever 
her own fate might be, her son would, at any rate, have 
a better chance of retaining his throne by being firmly 
established upon it in the capacity of a grown man. 
In future she herself could work, as it were, behind the 
scenes, and her son could carry on the great task which 
she had so long striven to accomplish. 

When the news of the coming celebrations was con- 
veyed to Antony in his hermitage, he seems to have 
been much disturbed by it. Cesarion and his rights 
had been to a large extent the cause of his ruin, and he 
must have been somewhat frightened at the audacity 
of the queen in thus giving Octavian further cause for 
annoyance. Here was Alexandria preparing to cele- 
brate in the most triumphant manner the coming of 
age of Octavian’s rival, the claimant to Julius Cesar’s 
powers and estate. Was the move to be regarded as 
clever policy or as reckless effrontery? Leaving the 
passive solitude of his little Timonium, he seems to 
have entered once more into active discussions with 
Cleopatra, and as a result of these conversations, he 
appears to have received the impression that his wife’s 
desire was now to resign her power to a large extent inte 


390 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


her son’s hands, thus leaving to the energy of youth 
the labours which middle age had failed to accomplish. 
This aspect of the movement appealed to him, and he 
determined in like manner, to be represented in future 
by a) younger generation. His son by Fulvia, Antyllus, 
who was a year or so younger than Cesarion, was living 
in the Alexandrian Palace; and Antony therefore 
arranged with Cleopatra that the two youths should 
together be declared of age (ephebi), Antyllus thence- 
forth being authorised to wear the legal dress of Roman 
manhood. Cleopatra then appears to have persuaded 
her husband to give up his ridiculous affectation of mis- 
anthropy, and either to make himself useful in organis- 
ing her schemes of defence, or to leave Egypt altogether. 
Antony was by this time heartily tired of his solitary 
life, and he was glad enough to abandon his Timonian 
pose. He therefore took up his residence once more in 
the Palace, and both he and Cleopatra made some at- 
tempt to renew their old relationship. Their paths 
had diverged, however, too far ever to resume any 
sort of unity. Antony had brooded in solitude over his 
supposed wrongs, and he now regarded his wife with a 
sort of suspicion; and she, on her part, accepted him no 
longer as her equal, but as a creature deserving her 
contempt, though arousing to some extent her generous 
pity. 

The birthday celebrations were conducted on the 
most magnificent lines, and the whole city was given 
over to feasting and revelling for many days. The 
impending storm was put away from the minds of all, 
and it would have been indeed difficult for a visitor to 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 391 


Alexandria during that time to believe that he had 
entered a city whose rulers had recently been defeated 
by an enemy already preparing to invade Egypt itself. 
Cleopatra, in fact, could not be brought to admit that 
the game was up; and in spite of the misery and anxiety 
weighing upon her mind, she kept a cheerful and hope- 
ful demeanour which ought to have won for her the 
admiration of all historians. Antony, on the other 
hand, was completely demoralised by the situation, 
and the birthday festivities having whetted his appetite 
once more for the pleasures of riotous living, he decided 
to bring his life to a close in a round of mad dissipation. 
Calling together the members of the order of Inimitable 
Livers, the banqueting club which he had founded some 
years before,‘t he invited them to sign their names to 
the roll of membership of a new society which he named 
the Synapothanoumenoi or the “ Die-togethers.” “Let 
us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die,” 
must have been his motto; and he seems to have thrown 
himself into this new phase with as much shallow pro- 
fundity as he had displayed in his adoption of the 
Timonian pose. Having no longer a_ world-wide 
audience before whom he could play the jovial réle of 
Bacchus or Hercules, he now acted his dramatic parts 
before the eyes of an inner love of pretence; and with 
a kind of honest and boyish charlatanism he paraded 
the halls of the Palace in the grim but not original char- 
acter of the reveller who banqueted with his good friend, 
Death. Antony actually had no intention of dying; he 
hoped to be allowed to retire, like his late colleague, 


™r Page 264. 


392 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Lepidus, the third Triumvir, into an unmolested private 
life; but the paradoxical situation in which he now 
found himself, that of a state prisoner sent back, as it 
were, on bail, to the luxuries of his home, could not 
fail to be turned to account by this “colossal 
child.” 

Cleopatra, on the other hand was prepared for all 
eventualities; and while she hoped somehow to be able 
to win her way out of her dilemma, she did not fail to 
make ready for the death which she might have to face. 
The news of Octavian’s return to Asia Minor was 
presently received in Alexandria, and she must have 
felt that her chances of successfully circumventing her 
difficulties were remote. She therefore busied herself 
in making a collection of all manner of poisonous drugs, 
and she often went down to the dungeons to make 
eager experiments upon the persons of condemned 
criminals. Anxiously she watched the death-struggles 
of the prisoners to whom the different poisons had been 
administered, discarding those drugs which produced 
pain and convulsions, and continuing her tests and 
trials with those which appeared to offer an easy 
liberation from life. She also experimented with 
venomous snakes, subjecting animals and human 
beings to their poisonous bites; and Plutarch tells 
us that 


“ She pretty well satisfied herself that nothing was compar- 
able to the bite of the asp, which, without causing convulsion 
or groaning, brought on a heavy drowsiness and coma, with 
a gentle perspiration on the face, the senses being stupefied 
by degrees, and the victim being apparently sensible of no 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 393 


pain, but only annoyed when disturbed or awakened, like 
one who is in a profound natural sleep.”’ *? 


If the worst came to the worst, she decided that 
she would take her life in this manner; and this ques- 
tion being settled, she turned her undivided attention 
once more to the problems which beset her. 

By May, Octavian had marched into Syria, where 
all the garrisons surrendered to him. He sent Cor- 
nelius Gallus to take command of the legions which had 
surrendered to him in north Africa, and this army had 
now taken possession of Parzetonitum, where Antony 
had stayed after his flight from Actium. The news 
that this frontier fortress had passed into the hands of 
the enemy had not yet reached Alexandria, but that of 
Octavian’s advance through Syria was already known 
in the city, and must have caused the greatest anxiety. 
Cleopatra thereupon decided upon a bold and dignified 
course of action. Towards the end of May, she sent her 
son, Ceesarion, with his tutor Rhodon, up the Nile to 
Koptos,** and thence across the desert to the port of 
Berenice, where as many ships as she could collect were 
ordered to be in waiting for him. The young Cesar 
travelled, it would seem, in considerable state, and 
carried with him a huge sum of money. He was 
expected to arrive at Berenice by about the end of June; 
and when, towards the middle of July,‘ the merchants 


12] fancy that the word asp is used in error, for I should think it much more 
probable that the deadly little horned viper was meant. 

13 In view of the activities of the Arabs of Petra, it is unlikely that she sent 
him by the sea route from Suez, which was little used by the merchants. 

t4 Page 126. 


394 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


journeying to India began to set out upon their long 
voyage, it was arranged that he should also set sail for 
those distant lands, there to make friends with the 
kings of Hindustan, and perhaps to organise the great 
amalgamation of Eastern nations of which Cleopatra 
had so often dreamed. She herself decided to remain 
at Alexandria, first to negotiate with Octavian for the 
retention of her throne, and in the event of this proving 
unsuccessful, to fight him to the death. No thought 
of flight entered her mind;'5 and though, witha mother’s 
solicitous care, she made these adventurous arrange- 
ments for the safety of her beloved son, it does not seem 
to have occurred to her to accompany him to the East, 
where she might have expected at any rate to find a 
temporary harbour of refuge. Her parting with him 
must have been one of the most unhappy events of her 
unfortunate life. For his safety and for his rights she 
had struggled for seventeen years; and now it was 
necessary to send him with the Indian merchants 
across perilous seas to strange lands in order to save 
him from the clutches of his successful rival, Octavian, 
while she herself remained to face their enemies and to 
fight for their joint throne. Her thoughts in these days 
of distress were turning once more to the memory of the 
boy’s father, the great Julius Cesar, for often, it would 
seem, she gazed at his pictures or read over again the 
letters which he had written to her; and now, as she 
despatched the young Cesar upon his distant voyage to 
those lands which had always so keenly interested his 


15 When dying she is said to have regretted that she did not seek safety in 
flight. 


ATTEMPT TO BEGIN AGAIN 395 


father, she must have invoked the aid of that deified 
spirit which all the Roman world worshipped as Divus 
Julius, and, in an agony of supplication, must have 
implored him to come to the assistance of his only 
earthly son and heir. 


CHAPTER XIX 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION OF EGYPT AMD THE DEATH 
OF ANTONY 


Tue historian must feel some reluctance in dis- 
crediting the romantic story of the attachment of 
Cleopatra and Antony at this period; but, nevertheless, 
the fact cannot be denied that they had now decided 
to live apart from one another, and there seems very 
little doubt that each regarded the other with distrust 
and suspicion. Antony had lived so long alone in his 
Timonium that he was altogether out of touch with his 
wife’s projects, and I can find no indication of that 
romantic passage, hand-in-hand to their doom, which 
has come to be regarded as the grand finale of their 
tragic tale. In its place, however, I would offer the 
spectacle of the lonely and courageous fight made by 
the little queen against her fate, which must surely 
command the admiration of all men. Her husband 
having so signally failed her, the whole burden of the 
government of her country and of the organisation of 
her defence seems to have fallen upon her shoulders. 
Day and night she must have been harassed by fearful 
anxieties, and haunted by the thought of her probable 

396 


and SS es er ee ——_— 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 397 


doom; yet she conducted herself with undaunted 
courage, never deigning to consider the question of 
flight, and never once turning from the pathway of that 
personal and dynastic ambition which seems to me 
hardly able to be distinguished from her real duty to 
her country. 

When Octavian was preparing in Syria, during the 
month of June, B.c. 30, to invade Egypt, both Cleo- 
patra and Antony attempted to open negotiations with 
him. They sent a certain Greek named Euphronius, 
who had been a tutor to one of the young princes, to 
the enemy, bearing messages from them both. Cleo- 
patra asked that, in return for her surrender, her son 
Cesarion might be allowed to retain his throne; but 
Antony prayed only that he might be allowed to live 
the life of a private man, either at Alexandria or else 
in Athens. With this embassy, Cleopatra sent her 
crown, her sceptre, and her state-chariot, in the hope 
that Octavian would bestow them again upon her son, 
i not upon herself. The mission, however, was a 
partial failure. Octavian would not listen to any pro- 
posals in regard to Antony; but to Cleopatra he sent a 
secret message, conveyed by one of his freedmen, 
named Thyrsus, indicating that he was well-disposed 
towards her, and would be inclined to leave her in 
possession of Egypt, if only she would cause Antony to 
be put to death. Actually, Octavian had no intention 
of showing any particular mercy to Cleopatra, and his 
suggestions were intended to deceive her. He seems 
to have made up his mind how to act. Antony would 
have to be murdered or made to take his own life; it 


398 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


would be awkward to have to condemn him to death 
and formally to execute him. Cesarion, his rival, 
would also have to meet with a violent end. Cleopatra 
ought to be captured alive so that he might display 
her in his Triumph, after which she would be sent into 
exile, while her country and its wealth would fall into 
his hands, the loot serving for the payment of his 
troops. In all his subsequent dealings with the queen, 
we shall observe his anxiety to take her alive, while 
towards Antony he will be seen to show a relentless 
hostility. 

The freedman Thyrsus was a personage of tact and 
understanding, and with Cleopatra he was able to 
discuss the situation in all its aspects. The queen was 
striving by every means to retain her throne, and she 
was quite capable of paying Octavian back in his own 
coin, deceiving him and leading him to suppose that 
she would trust herself to his mercy. She showed great 
attention to Thyrsus, giving him lengthy audiences, 
and treating him with considerable honour; and Antony, 
not being admitted to their secret discussions, grew — 
daily more angry and suspicious. It is not likely that 
Cleopatra consented to the proposed assassination of 
her husband, but the situation was such that she could 
have had no great objection to the thought of his 
suicide, and I dare say she discussed quite frankly 
with Thyrsus the means of reminding him of his hon- 
ourable obligations. It is said by Dion Cassius that 
Octavian actually conveyed messages of an amorous 
nature to Cleopatra, but this is probably incorrect, 
though Thyrsus may well have hinted that his master’s 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 399 


heart had been touched by the brave manner in which 
she had faced her misfortunes, and that he was eager to 
win her regard. Possibly a rumour of the nature of their 
conferences reached Antony, or maybe his jealousy was 
aroused by the freedman’s confidential attitude to the 
queen; for he became even more suspicious than he 
had been before, and he appears to have conducted 
himself as though his mind were in a condition of 
extreme exasperation. Suddenly he caused Thyrsus 
to be seized by some of his men and soundly thrashed, 
after which he sent him back to Octavian with a letter 
explaining his action. “‘The man’s inquisitive, im- 
pertinent ways, provoked me,” he wrote, “and in my 
circumstances I cannot be expected to be very patient. 
But if it offend you, you have got my freedman, Hip- 
parchus, with you; hang him up and whip him to make 
us even.” Hipparchus had probably deserted from 
Antony to Octavian, and the whipping of Thyrsus and 
the suggested retaliation constituted a piece of grim 
humour which seems to have appealed at once to 
Cleopatra’s instincts. The audacity of the action was 
of the kind which most delighted her; and she immed- 
iately began to pay more respect to her husband, who, 
she thus found, was still capable of asserting himself 
in a kingly manner. Plutarch tells us that to clear 
herself of his suspicions, which were quite unfounded, 
she now paid him more attention and humoured him 
in every way; and it seems that her change of attitude 
put new courage into his heart, substituting a brave 
bearing for that dejection of carriage which had lately 
been so noticeable. She seemed anxious to prove to 


400 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


him that she would not play him false, and to make 
her attitude clear to Octavian. When the anr.iversary 
of her birthday had occurred in the previous winter 
she had celebrated it very quietly; but Antony’s 
birthday, which fell at about this time of year, she 
celebrated in the most elaborate manner, giving great 
presents to all those who had enjoyed her hospitality 
It was as though she desired all men to know that so 
long as Antony played the man, and entered into this 
last fight with that spirit of adventure which always 
marked her own actions, she would stand by him to 
the last; but that if he lacked the spirit to make a bid 
for success, then she could but wish him well out of her 
way. The thrashing of Thyrsus proved to be the 
occasion of a temporary reconciliation between the 
queen and her husband,‘ and for a time Antony acted 
with something of his old energy and courage. 

Hearing that the army under Cornelius Gallus was 
marching through Cyrenaica, the modern Tripoli, 
towards the western frontier of Egypt, he hastened 
with a few ships to Parszetonium, in order to secure the 
defence of that place. But on landing and approaching 
the walls of the fortress and calling upon the com- 
mander to come out to him, his voice was drowned by 
a blare of trumpets from within. A few minutes later, 
the garrison made a sortie, chased him and his men 
back to the harbour, set fire to some of his ships, and. 
drove him with considerable loss from their shores. 
On returning to Alexandria, he heard that Octavian 
was approaching Pelusium, the corresponding fortress 

« This seems clearly indicated by Plutarch. 





Glyptothek, Munich rh Photograph by Brudkmann 


OCTAVIAN 





1 





OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 401 


on the eastern frontier of Egypt, which was under the 
command of a certain officer named Seleucus; and 
shortly after this, towards the middle of July, the news 
arrived that that stronghold had surrendered. 
Thereupon Antony, whose nerves were in a very 
highly-strung condition, furiously accused Cleopatra 
of having betrayed him by arranging secretly with 
Seleucus to hand over the fortress to Octavian in the 
hope of placating the approaching enemy. Cleopatra 
denied the accusation, and, to prove the truth of her 
words, she caused the wife and children of Seleucus to 
be arrested and handed over to her husband, that he 
might put them to death if it were shown that she had 
had any secret correspondence with the traitor,? a fact 
which seems to prove her innocence conclusively. 
Antony’s suspicions, however, unnerved him once 
more, and drove the flickering courage from his heart. 
Dispirited and agitated, he sent Euphronius to Octavian 
a second time, accompanied on this occasion by the 
young Antyllus, and provided with a large sum of 
money with which he hoped to placate his enemy. 
Octavian took the money but would not listen to the 
pleading of Antyllus on behalf of his father. The 
embassy must have been most distasteful to Cleopatra, 
who could not easily understand how a man could fall 
so low as to attempt to buy off his enemy with gold— 
and gold, let it be remembered, belonging to his wife. 
Her surprise and pain, however, must have been greatly 


2 Dion Cassius suggests that Cleopatra did attempt to play into Octavian’s 
hands, but the accusation is quite unfounded, and is an obvious one to make 
against the hated enemy. 


402 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


increased when she discovered that Antony had next 
sent in chains to Octavian a certain ex-senator, named 
Turullius, who had been one of the murderers of Julius 
Cesar, and was, in fact, the last survivor of all the 
assassins, each one of the others having met his death 
as though by the hand of a vengeful Providence 
Turullius had now come into Antony’s power, and, 
since Cleopatra’s son was Julius Ceesar’s heir, the man 
ought to have been handed over to the queen for punish- 
ment. Instead, however, Antony had sent him on to 
his enemy in a manner which could only suggest that 
he admitted Octavian’s right to act as the Dictator’s 
representative. Octavian at once put Turullius to 
death, thereby performing the last necessary act of 
vengeance in behalf of the murdered Cesar; but to 
Antony he did not so much as send an acknowledgment 
of the prisoner’s reception. Receiving no assurance of 
mercy, Antony appears for a time to have thought 
of flying to Spain or to some other country where he 
could hide, or could carry on a guerilla warfare until 
some change in the politics of Rome should enable him 
to reappear. His nobler nature, however, at length 
asserted itself, owing to the example set by Cleopatra, 
who was determined now to defend her capital; and once 
more he pulled himself together, as though to stand 
by the queen’s side until the end. Their position, 
though bad, was not desperate. Alexandria was a 
strongly fortified city. The four Roman legions which 
had been left in Egypt during the war in Greece were 
still in the city; the Macedonian household troops 
were also stationed there; and no doubt a considerable 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 403 


body of Egyptian soldiers were garrisoned within the 
walls; while in the harbour lay the fleet which had 
retired from Actium, together with numerous other 
ships of war. Thus a formidable force was in readiness 
to defend the metropolis, and these men were so highly 
paid with the never-ending wealth of the Egyptian 
treasury that they were in much happier condition 
than were the legionaries of Octavian, whose wages were 
months overdue. 

Cleopatra, nevertheless, did not expect to come 
through the ordeal alive; and although Octavian con- 
tmued to send her assurances of his goodwill, the price 
which he asked for her safety was invariably the head 
of Antony, and this she was not prepared to pay. I 
do not think that the queen’s temptation in this regard 
has been properly observed. Dion Cassius emphatically 
states that Octavian promised her that if she would 
kill Antony he would grant her both personal safety 
and the full maintenance of her undiminished authority; 
and Plutarch, with equal clearness, says that Octavian 
told her that there was no reasonable favour which she 
might not expect from him if only she would put An- 
tony to death, or even expel him from his safe refuge 
in Egypt. Antony had proved himself a broken reed; 
he had acted in a most cowardly manner; he was 
generally drunk and always unreliable; and he appeared 
to be of no further use to her or to her cause. Yet, 
although his removal meant immunity to herself, she 
was too loyal, too proud, to sanction his assassination; 
and her action practically amounted to this, that she 
defied Octavian, telling him that if he wanted her 


404 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


drunken husband’s useless head he must break down 
the walls of the city and hunt for it. 

In accordance with the custom of the age, the queen 
had built herself, during recent years, a tomb and 
mortuary temple wherein her body should rest after 
death, and her spirit should receive the usual sacrifices 
and priestly ministrations. This mausoleum, according 
to Plutarch, was surrounded by other buildings, appar- 
ently prepared for the royal family and for members 
of the court. They were not set up within the precincts 
of the Sema, or royal necropolis, which stood at the 
side of the Street of Canopus, but were erected beside 
the temple of Isis-Aphrodite, a building rising at the 
edge of the sea on the eastern side of the Lochias 
Promontory. I gather from the remarks of Plutarch 
that the queen’s tomb actually formed part of the 
temple buildings; and, if this be so, Cleopatra must 
have had it in mind to be laid to rest within the pre- 
cincts of the sanctuary of the goddess with whom she 
was identified. Thus, after her death, the worshippers 
in the temple of Isis would make their supplications, 
as it were, to her own spirit, and her mortal remains 
would become holy relics of their patron goddess. : 
The mausoleum was remarkable for its height and for 
the beauty of its workmanship. It was probably 
constructed of valuable marbles, and appears to have 
consisted of several chambers. On the ground floor 
I should imagine that a pillared hall, entered through 


3 This fact, the significance of which has been overlooked, is an interesting 
indication of Cleopatra’s definite claim to be a manifestation of Venus-Aphro- 
dite-Isis. See pp. 129, 154, 244. 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 405 


a double door of decorated cedar wood, led to an inner 
shrine wherein the sarcophagus stood ready to receive 
the queen’s body; and that from this hall a flight of 
stone stairs ascended to the upper chambers, whose 
flooring was formed of the great blocks of granite which 
constituted the roofing of the hall below. The large 
open casements in the walls of these upper chambers 
must have overlooked the sea on the one side and the 
courts of the Temple of Isis on the other; but, as was 
usual in Egyptianised buildings, there were no windows 
of any size in the lower hall and sanctuary, the light 
being admitted through the doorway and through small 
apertures close to the ceiling. The heat of these July 
days did not penetrate to any uncomfortable degree 
into this stone-built mausoleum, and the cool sea-wind 
must have blown continuously through the upper 
rooms, while the brilliant sunlight outside was here 
subdued and softened in its reflection upon the marble 
walls. The rhythmic beat of the breakers upon the 
stone embankment below the eastern windows, and the 
shrill cries of the gulls, echoed through the rooms; while 
from the western side the chanting of the priests in the 
adjoining temple, and the more distant hubbub of the 
town, intruded into the cool recesses of these wind- 
swept chambers like the sounds of a forsaken world. 
Here Cleopatra decided to take up her residence so 
soon as Octavian should lay successful siege to the 
walls of the city. She had determined that in the event 
of defeat she would destroy herself; and, with this 
prospect in view, she now caused her treasures of gold, 
silver, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon, and her jewellery 


406 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of pearls, emeralds, and precious stones, to be carried 
into the mausoleum, where they were laid upon a 
pyre of faggots and tow erected on the stone floor of 
one of the upper rooms. If it should be necessary for 
her to put an end to her miseries, she had decided to set 
the fangs of the deadly asp into her flesh, and, with her 
last efforts, to fire the tow, thus consuming her body 
and her wealth in a single conflagration. Meanwhile, 
however, she remained in the Palace, and busied herself 
in the preparations of the defence of the city. 

In the last days of July, Octavian’s forces arrived 
before the walls, and took up their quarters in and 
around the Hippodromos which stood upon rocky 
ground to the east of the city. Faced with the crisis, 
Antony once more showed the flickering remnants of 
his former courage. Gathering his troops together he 
made a bold sortie from the city, and attacking Octa- 
vian’s cavalry, routed them with great slaughter and 
chased them back to their camp. He then returned 
to the Palace, where, meeting Cleopatra while still he 
was clad in his dusty and bloodstained armour, he 
threw his arms about her small form and kissed her in 
the sight of all men. He then commended to her 
especial favour one of his officers who had greatly dis- 
tinguished himself in the fight; and the queen at once 
presented the man with a magnificent helmet and 
breastplate of gold. That very night this officer donned 
his golden armour and fled to the camp of Octavian. 

Upon the next morning, Antony, with somewhat 
boyish effrontery, sent a messenger to Octavian chal- 
lenging him to single combat, as he had done before 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 407 


the battle of Actium; but to this his enemy replied with 
the scathing remark that “he might find several other 
ways of ending his life.” He thereupon decided to 
bring matters to a conclusion by a pitched battle on 
land and sea, rather than await the issue of a protracted 
siege; and, Cleopatra having agreed to this plan, orders 
were given for a general engagement upon August Ist. 
On the night before this date, Antony, whose courage 
did not now fail him, bade the servants help him 
liberally at supper and not to be sparing with the wine, 
for that on the morrow they might be serving a new 
master, while he himself, the incarnation of Bacchus, 
the god of wine and festivity, lay dead upon the battle- 
field. At this his friends who were around him began 
to weep, but Antony hastily explained to them that he 
did not in the least expect to die, but hoped rather to 
lead them to glorious victory. 

Late that night, when complete stillness had fallen 
upon the starlit city, and the sea wind had dropped, 
giving place to the hot silence of the summer darkness, 
on a sudden was heard the distant sound of pipes and 
cymbals, and of voices singing a rollicking tune. Nearer 
they came, and presently the pattering of dancing feet 
could be heard, while the shouts and cries of a multi- 
tude were blended with the wild music of a bacchanal 
song. The tumultuous procession, as Plutarch de- 
scribed it, seemed to take its course right through the 
middle of the city towards the Gate of Canopus; and 
there the commotion was most loudly heard. Then, 
suddenly, the sounds passed out, and were heard no 
more. But all those who had listened in the darkness 


408 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


to the wild music were assured that they had heard the 
passage of Bacchus as he and his ghostly attendants 
marched away from the army of his fallen incarnation, 
and joined that of the victorious Octavian. 4 

The next morning, as soon as it was light, Antony 
marched his troops out of the eastern gates of the city, 
and formed them up on rising ground between the walls 
and the Hippodromos, a short distance back from the 
sea. From this position he watched his fleet sail out 
from the Great Harbour and make towards Octavian’s 
ships, which were arrayed near the shore, two or three 
miles east of the city; but, to his dismay, the Alexan- 
drian vessels made no attempt to deliver an attack 
upon the enemy, as he had ordered them to do. In- 
stead, they saluted Octavian’s fleet with their oars, 
and, on receiving a similar salutation in response, joined 
up with the enemy, all sailing thereupon towards the 
Great Harbour. Meanwhile, from his elevated posi- 
tion, Antony saw the whole of his cavalry suddenly 
gallop over to Octavian’s lines, and he thus found him- 
self left only with his infantry, who, of course, were no 
match for the enemy. It was useless to struggle further, 
and, giving up all hope, he fled back into the city, crying 
out that Cleopatra had betrayed him. As he rushed 
into the Palace, followed by his distracted officers, 
smiting his brow and calling down curses on the woman 
who, he declared, had delivered him into the hands of 
enemies made for her sake, the queen fled before him 
from her apartments, as though she feared that in his 


4'The sound perhaps came from Octavian’s outposts, which were just out- 
side the Gate of Canopus. 


ya, 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 409 


fury and despair he might cut her down with his sword. 
Alone with her two waiting-women, Iras and Charmion, 
she ran as fast as she could through the empty halls 
and corridors of the Palace, and at length, crossing the 
deserted courtyard, she reached the mausoleum adjoin- 
ing the temple of Isis. The officials, servants, and 
guards it would seem, had all fled at the moment when 
the cry had arisen that the fleet and the cavalry had 
deserted; and there were probably but a few scared 
priests in the vicinity of the temple, who could hardly 
have recognised the queen as she panted to the open 
door of the tomb, deserted by its usual custodians. 
The three women rushed into the dimly lighted hall, 
bolting and barring the door behind them, and no 
doubt barricading it with benches, offering-tables, and 
other pieces of sacerdotal furniture. They then made 
their way to the habitable rooms on the upper floor, 
where they must have flung themselves down upon the 
rich couches in a sort of delirium of horror and excite- 
ment, Cleopatra herself preparing for immediate suicide. 
From the window they must have seen some of Antony’s 
staff hastening towards them, for presently they were 
able to send a message to tell him that the queen was 
on the point of killing herself. After a short time, 
however, when the tumult in her brain had somewhat 
subsided, Cleopatra made up her mind to wait awhile 
before taking the final step, so that she might ascertain 
Octavian’s attitude towards her; and, having deter- 
mined upon this course of action, she seems to have 
composed herself as best she could, while through the 
eastern windows, her eyes staring over the summer 


410 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


sea, she watched the Egyptian ships and those of the 
enemy rowing side by side into the Great Harbour. 

There is no reason to suppose that Cleopatra had 
betrayed her husband, or that she was in any way a 
party to the desertions which had just taken place. 
The sudden collapse of their resistance, while yet it 
was but mid-morning, must have come to her as a 
staggering shock; and Antony’s accusations were 
doubtless felt to be only in keeping with the erratic 
behaviour which had characterised his last years. On 
the previous day, Antony had offered a large sum of 
money to every one of Octavian’s legionaries who should 
desert; and it is more than likely that Octavian had 
made a similar offer to the Egyptian sailors and soldiers. 
Only a year previously these sailors had fraternised with 
the Romans of the Antonian party in the Gulf of 
Ambracia, and the latter, having deserted to Octavian 
after the battle of Actium, were now present in large 
numbers amongst the opposing fleet. The Egyptians 
were thus called upon to fight with their friends whose 
hospitality they had often accepted, and whose fighting 
qualities, now that they were combined with Octavian’s 
victorious forces, they had every reason to appreciate. 
Their desertion, therefore, needed no suggestion on the 
part of Cleopatra; it was almost inevitable. 

Antony, however, was far too distracted and over- 
wrought to guard his tongue, and he seems to have 
paced his apartments in the Palace in a condition 
bordering upon madness, cursing Cleopatra and her 
country, and calling down imprecations upon all who 
had deserted him. Presently those of his staff who had 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 411 


followed the queen to her mausoleum brought him the 
news that she had killed herself, for so they had inter- 
_ preted her message; and instantly Antony’s fury seems 
to have left him, the shock having caused a collapse of 
his energy. At first he was probably dazed by the 
tidings; but when their full significance had penetrated 
to his bewildered brain there was no place left for anger 
or suspicion. ‘“‘Now Antony,” he cried, “why delay 
longer? Fate has taken away the only thing for which 
you could say you still wanted to live.’’ And with these 
words he rushed into his bedchamber, eagerly tearing 
off his armour, and calling upon his slave, Eros, to 
assist him. Then, as he bared the upper part of his 
body, he was heard to talk aloud to the queen, whom 
he believed to be dead. ‘‘Cleopatra,”’ he said, “I am 
not sad to be parted from you now, for I shall soon be 
with you; but it troubles me that so great a general 
should have been found to have slower courage than a 
woman. Not long previously, he had made Eros 
solemnly promise to kill him when he should order 
him to do so; and now, turning to him, he gave him 
that order, reminding him of his oath. Eros drew his 
sword, as though he intended to do as he was bid, but 
suddenly turning round, he drove the blade into his own 
breast, and fell dying upon the floor. Thereupon Antony 
bent down over him and cried to him as he lost conscious- 
ness, “Well done, Eros! Well done!’ Then, picking 
up the sword, he added, “‘ You have shown your master 
how to do what you had not the heart to do yourself,” 
and so saying, he drove the sword upwards into his 
breast from below the ribs, and fell back upon his bed. 


412 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


The wound, however, was not immediately mortal, 
and presently, the flow of blood having ceased, he 
recovered consciousness. Some of the Egyptian ser- 
vants had gathered around him, and now he implored 
them to put him out of his pain. But when they 
realised that he was not dead, they rushed from the 
room, leaving him groaning and writhing where he lay. 
Some of them must have carried the news to the queen 
as she sat at the window of the mausoleum, for, a few 
moments later, a certain Diomedes, one of her secre- 
taries, came to Antony telling him that she had not 
yet killed herself, and that she desired his body to be 
brought to her. Thereupon Antony eagerly gave orders 
to the servants to carry him to her, and they, lifting 
him in their arms, placed him upon an improvised 
stretcher and hurried with him to the mausoleum. A 
crowd seems now to have collected around the door of 
the building, and when the queen saw the group of 
men bringing her husband to her, she must have feared 
lest some of them, seeking a reward, would seize her as 
soon as they had entered her stronghold and carry her 
alive to Octavian. Perhaps, also, it was a difficult 
matter to shoot back the bolts of the door, which in her 
excitement she had managed to drive deep into their 
sockets. She, therefore, was unable to admit Antony 
into the mausoleum; and there he lay below her window, 
groaning and entreating her to let him die in her arms. 
In the words of Plutarch, Cleopatra thereupon 


“let down ropes and cords to which Antony was fastened; 
and she and her two women, the only persons she had allowed 
to enter the mausoleum, drew him up. Those who were 


OCTAVIAN’S INVASION 413 


present say that nothing was ever more sad than this spec- 
tacle, to see Antony, covered all over with blood, and just 
expiring, thus drawn up, still holding up his hands to her, and 
raising up his body with the little force he had left. And, 
indeed, it was no easy task for the women; for Cleopatra, 
with all her strength clinging to the rope and straining at it 
with her head bent towards the ground, with difficulty 
pulled him up, while those below encouraged her with their 
cries and joined in all her efforts and anxiety.” 


The window must have been a considerable distance from 
the ground, and I do not think that the three women 
could ever have succeeded in raising Antony’s great 
weight so far had not those below fetched ladders, I 
suppose, and helped to lift him up to her, thereafter, 
no doubt, watching the terrible scene from the head 
of these ladders outside the window. 

Dragging him through the window, the women 
carried him to the bed, upon which he probably swooned 
away after the agonies of the ascent. Cleopatra was 
distracted by the pitiful sight, and fell into uncontrolled 
weeping. Beating her breast and tearing her clothes, 
she made some attempts, at the same time, to staunch 
the scarlet stream which flowed from his wound, and 
soon her face and neck were smeared with his blood. 
Flinging herself down by his side, she called him her 
lord, her husband, and her emperor. All her pity and 
much of her old love for him was aroused by his terrible 
sufferings, and so intent was she upon his pain that her 
own desperate situation was entirely forgotten. At 
last, Antony came to his senses, and called for wine to 
drink; after which, having revived somewhat, he 
attempted to soothe the queen’s wild lamentations, 


414. LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


telling her to make her terms with Octavian, so far as 
might honourably be done, and advising her to trust 
only a certain Proculeius amongst all the friends of 
the conqueror. With his last breath, he begged her, 
says Plutarch, 


“not to pity him in his last turn of Fate, but rather to 
rejoice for him in remembrance of his past happiness, who 
had been of all men the most illustrious and powerful, and 
in the end had fallen not ignobly, a Roman by a Roman 
vanquished.” 


With these words he lay back upon the bed, and 
soon had breathed his last in the arms of the woman 
whose interests he had so poorly served, and whom 
now he left to face alone the last great struggle for her 
throne and for the welfare of her son. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA AND THE TRIUMPH OF 
OCTAVIAN 


CLEOPATRA’S situation was at this moment terrible 
in the extreme. The blood-stained body of her husband 
lay stretched upon the bed, covered by her torn gar- 
ments which she had thrown over it. Charmion and 
Tras, her two waiting-women, were probably huddled 
in the corner of the room, beating their breasts and 
wailing as was the Greek habit at such a time. Below 
the open window a few Romans and Egyptians appear 
to have gathered in the sun-baked courtyard; and, I 
think, the ladders still rested against the wall where 
they had been placed by those who had helped to raise 
Antony up to the queen. It must now have been early 
afternoon, and the sunlight of the August day, no 
doubt, beat into the room, lighting the disarranged 
furniture and revealing the wet bloodstains upon the 
tumbled carpets over which the dying man’s heavy 
body had been dragged. From the one side the surge 
of the sea penetrated into the chamber; from the other 
the shouts of Octavian’s soldiers and the clattering 


of their arms came to Cleopatra’s ears, telling her of the 
415 


416 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


enemy’s arrival in the Palace. She might expect at 
any moment to be asked to surrender, and more than 
probably an attempt would be made to capture her by 
means of an entry through the window. She had 
determined, however, never to be made prisoner in 
this manner, and she had, no doubt, given it to be 
clearly understood that any effort to seize her would be 
her signal for firmg the funeral pyre which had been 
erected in the adjoining room, and destroying herself 
upon it. To be made a captive probably meant her 
degradation at Octavian’s Triumph, and the loss of 
her throne; but to surrender by mutual arrangement 
might assure her personal safety and the continuity of 
her dynasty. With this in view, it seems likely that 
she now armed her two women to resist any assault 
upon the windows, and told them to warn all who 
attempted to climb the ladders that she, with her 
priceless jewellery and treasures, would be engulfed in 
the flames before ever they had reached to the level of 
her place of refuge. | 
Antony had been dead but a few minutes when 
Proculeius, of whom he had spoken to Cleopatra just 
before he expired, arrived upon the scene, demanding, 
in the name of Octavian, an audience with the queen. 
He knocked upon the barred door of the main entrance 
to the mausoleum, calling upon Cleopatra to admit 
him, and the sound must have echoed through the hall 
below and come to her ears, where she listened at the 
top of the stairs, like some ominous summons from the 
powers of the Underworld; but, fearing that she might 
be taken prisoner, she did not dare open to him, even 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 417 


if she could have shot back the heavy bolts, and she 
must have paced to and fro beside her husband’s corpse 
In an agony of indecision. At last, however, she ran 
down the marble staircase to the dimly lit hall below, 
and, standing beside the barricade which she had con- 
structed against the inner side of the door, called out 
to Proculeius by name. He answered her from the 
outside, and in this manner they held a short parley 
with one another, she offering to surrender if she could 
receive Octavian’s word that her kingdom of Egypt 
would be given to her son Cesarion, and Proculeius 
replying only with the assurance that Octavian was to 
be trusted to act with clemency towards her. This 
was not satisfactory to her, and presently the Roman 
officer returned to his master, leaving Cleopatra un- 
disturbed until late in the afternoon. He described the 
queen’s situation to Octavian, and pointed out to him 
that it would probably not be difficult to effect an 
entrance to the mausoleum by means of the ladders, 
and that, with speed and a little manceuvring, Cleo- 
patra could be seized before she had time to fire the 
pyre. Thereupon, Octavian sent him with Cornelius 
Gallus, who had now reached Alexandria, to attempt 
her capture, and the latter went straight to the door 
of the mausoleum, knocking upon it to summon the 
queen. Cleopatra at once went down the stairs and 
entered into conversation with Cornelius Gallus through 
the closed door; and it would seem that her two women, 
perhaps eager to hear what was said, left their post at 
the window of the upper room and stood upon the 


t Page 393. 


418 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


steps behind her. As soon as the queen was heard to 
be talking and reiterating her conditions of surrender, 
Proculeius ran round to the other side of the building, 
and, adjusting the ladders, climbed rapidly up to the 
window, followed by two other Roman officers. Enter- 
ing the disordered room, he ran past the dead body of 
Antony and hurried down the stairs, at the bottom of 
which he encountered Charmion and Iras, while beyond 
them in the dim light of the hall he saw Cleopatra 
standing at the shut door, her back turned to him. 
One of the women uttered a cry, when she saw Pro- 
culeius, and called out to her mistress: “Unhappy 
Cleopatra, you are taken prisoner!”’ At this the queen 
sprang round, and, seeing the Roman officer, snatched 
a dagger from its sheath at her waist and raised it for 
the stroke which should terminate the horror of her 
life. Proculeius, however, was too quick for her. He 
sprang at her with a force which must have hurled her 
back against the door, and, seizing her wrist, shook the 
dagger from her small hand. Then, holding her two 
arms at her side, he caused his men to shake her dress 
and to search her for hidden weapons or poison. “For 
shame, Cleopatra,” he said to her, scolding her for 
attempting to take her life; “‘you wrong yourself and 
Octavian very much in trying to rob him of so good an 
opportunity of showing his clemency, and you would 
make the world believe that the most humane of gen- 
erals was a faithless and implacable enemy.” He then 
seems to have ordered his officers to remove the barriers 
and to open the door of the mausoleum, whereupon 
Cornelius Gallus and his men were able to assist him 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 419 


to guard the queen and her two women. Shortly 
after this, Octavian’s freedman, Epaphroditus, arrived 
with orders to treat Cleopatra with all possible gentle- 
ness and civility, but to take the strictest precautions 
to prevent her injuring herself; and, acting on these 
instructions, the Roman officers seem to have lodged 
the queen under guard in one of the upper rooms of the 
mausoleum, after having made a thorough search for 
hidden weapons or poisons. 

Just before sunset, Octavian made his formal entry 
into Alexandria. He wished to impress the people of 
the city with the fact of his benevolent and peace-loving 
nature, and therefore he made a certain Alexandrian 
philosopher named Areius, for whom he had a liking, 
ride with him in his chariot. As the triumphal pro- 
cession passed along the beautiful Street of Canopus, 
Octavian was seen by the agitated citizens to be holding 
the philosopher’s hand and talking to him in the most 
gentle manner. Stories soon went the rounds that 
when the conqueror had received the news of Antony’s 
death he had shed tears of sorrow, and had read over 
to his staff some of his enemy’s furious letters to him, 
and his own moderate replies, thus showing how the 
quarrel had been forced upon him. Orders now seem 
to have been issued forbidding all outrage or looting; 
and presently the frightened Alexandrians ventured 
from their hiding-places, most of the local magnates 
being ordered to gather themselves together in the 
Gymnasium. Here, in the twilight, Octavian rose to 
address them; and as he did so, they all prostrated 
themselves upon the ground before him in abject 


420 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


humiliation. Commanding them to rise, he told them 
that he freely acquitted them of all blame, firstly, in 
memory of the great Alexander who had founded their 
city; secondly, for the sake of the city itself, which 
was so large and beautiful; thirdly, in honour of their 
god, Serapis; ? and lastly, to gratify his dear friend, 
Areius, at whose request he was about to spare many 
lives. 

Having thus calmed the citizens, who now must 
have hailed him as a kind of deliverer and saviour, he 
retired to his quarters, whence, in his sardonic manner, 
he appears to have issued orders for the immediate 
slaughter of those members of the court of Cleopatra 
and Antony for whom Areius had not any particular 
liking. The unfortunate Antyllus, Antony’s son, 
having been betrayed to Octavian by his faithless 
tutor, Theodorus, was at once put to death in the 
temple erected by Cleopatra to Julius Czsar, whither 
he had fled. As the executioner cut off the boy’s head, 
Theodorus contrived to steal a valuable jewel which 
hung round his neck; but the theft was discovered, and 
he was carried before Octavian, who ordered him to be 
crucified forthwith. <A strict guard was set over the 
two children of Cleopatra, Ptolemy and Cleopatra 
Selene,? who were still in Alexandria; and Octavian 
seems to have given Cleopatra to understand that if 
she attempted to kill herself he would put these two 
children to death. Thus he was able to assure himself 


2 Plutarch does not give Serapis as one of the reasons of Octavian’s clem- 
ency, but Dion says this was so. 
3 Page 381. 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 421 


that she would refrain from taking her life, for, as 
Plutarch says, “before such engines her purpose (to 
destroy herself) shook and gave way.” 

Antony’s body was now, I suppose, prepared for 
burial. Though mummification was still often prac- 
tised in Alexandria by Greeks and Egyptians, I do not 
think that any elaborate attempt was made to embalm 
the corpse, and it was probably ready for the funeral 
rites within a few days. Out of respect to the dead 
general, a number of Roman officers and foreign po- 
tentates who were with Octavian’s army begged to be 
- allowed to perform these rites at their own expense; 
but in deference to Cleopatra’s wishes the body was 
left in the queen’s hands, and instructions were issued 
that her orders were to be obeyed in regard to the 
funeral. Thus Antony was buried, with every mark of 
royal splendour and pomp, in a tomb which had prob- 
ably long been prepared for him, not far from his wife’s 
mausoleum. Cleopatra followed him to his grave, a 
tragic, piteous little figure, surrounded by a group of 
her lamenting ladies; and, while the priests burnt their 
incense and uttered their droning chants, the queen’s 
fragile hands ruthlessly beat her breasts as she called 
upon the dead man by his name. In these last terrible 
hours, only the happier character of her relationship 
with Antony was remembered, and the recollection of 
her many disagreements with him was banished from 
her mind by the piteous scenes of his death, and by the 
thought of his last tender words to her as he lay 
groaning upon her bed. In her extreme loneliness she 
must have now desired his buoyant company of earlier 


422 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


years with an intensity which she could hardly have 
felt during his lifetime; and it must have been difficult 
indeed for her to refrain from putting an end to her 
miserable life upon the grave of her dead lover. Yet 
Octavian’s threat in regard to her children held her 
hand; and, moreover, even in her utter distress, she 
had not yet abandoned her hope of saving Egypt 
from the clutch of Rome. Her own dominion, she 
knew, was over, and the best fate which she herself 
could hope for was that of an unmolested exile; yet 
Octavian’s attitude to her indicated in every way that 
he would be willing to leave the throne to her descend- 
ants. She did not know how falsely he was acting 
towards her, how he was making every effort to encour- 
age hope in her heart in order that he might bring her 
alive to Rome to be exhibited in chains to the jeering 
populace. She did not understand that his messages 
of encouragement, and even of affection, to her, were 
written with sardonic cunning, that his cheerful assur- 
ances in regard to her children were made at a time 
when he was probably actually sending messages post- 
haste to Berenice to attempt to recall Ceesarion in order 
to put him to death. She did not understand Octavian’s 
character; perhaps she had never even seen him; and 
she hoped somehow to make a last appeal to him. She 
had played her wonderful game for the amalgamation 
of Egypt and Rome into one vast kingdom, ruled by 
her descendants, and those of the great Julius Cesar, 
and she had lost. But there was yet hope that out of 
the general wreck she might save the one asset with 
which she had started her operations—the independent 





THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 423 


throne of Egypt; and to accomplish this she must live 
on for a while longer, and must face with bravery the 
nightmare of her existence. 

Coming back, after the funeral, to her rooms in the 
mausoleum, wherein she had now decided to take up 
her residence, she fell into a high fever; and there upon 
her bed she lay in delirium for several days. She 
suffered, moreover, very considerable pain, due to the 
inflammation and ulceration caused by the blows 
which she had rained upon her delicate body in the 
abandonment of her despair. Over and over again she 
was heard to utter in her delirium the desolate cry, “I 
will not be exhibited in his Triumph,” and in her distress 
she begged repeatedly to be allowed to die. At one 
time she refused all food, and begged her doctor, a 
certain Olympus, to help her to pass quietly out of the 
world. Octavian, however, hearing of her increasing 
weakness, warned her once more that unless she made 
an effort to live he would not be lenient to her children; 
whereupon, as though galvanised mto life by this 
pressure upon her maternal instincts, she made the 
necessary struggle to recover, obediently swallowing the 
medicine and stimulants which were given to her. 

Thus, the hot August days passed by, and at length 
the queen, now fragile and haggard, was able to move 
about once more. Her age at this time was thirty-eight 
years, and she must have lost that freshness of youth 
which had been her notable quality; but her brilliant 
eyes had now perhaps gained in wonder by the pallor 


4 Plutarch tells us that this doctor wrote a full account of these last scenes, 
from which he evidently quotes. 


424 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


of her face, and the careless arrangement of her dark 
hair must have enhanced her tragic beauty. The 
seductive tones of her voice could not have been dimin- 
ished, and that peculiar quality of elusiveness may well 
have been accentuated by her illness and by the nervous 
stram through which she had passed. Indeed, her 
personal charm was still so great that a certain Cor- 
nelius Dolabella, one of the Roman officers whose duty 
it was to keep watch over her, speedily became her 
devoted servant, and was induced to promise that he 
would report to her any plans in regard to her welfare 
which Octavian should disclose. 

On August 28th, as she lay upon a small pallet-bed 
in the upper room, gazing in utter desolation, as I 
Imagine, over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, 
her women ran in to her to tell her that Octavian had 
come to pay his respects to her. He had not yet visited 
her, for he had very correctly avoided her previous to 
and during Antony’s funeral; and since that time she 
had been too ill to receive him. Now, however, she 
was convalescent, and the conqueror had arrived un- 
expectedly to congratulate her, as etiquette demanded, 
upon her recovery. He walked into the room before 
the queen had time to prepare herself; and Plutarch 
describes how, 


“on his entering, she sprang from her bed, having nothing 
on but the one garment next her body, and flung herself at 
his feet, her hair and face looking wild and disfigured, her 
voice trembling, and her eyes sunken and dark. The marks 
of the blows which she had rained upon herself were visible 
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THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 425 


be no less afflicted than was her spirit. But for all this, her 
old charm and the boldness of her youthful beauty had not 
wholly left her, and, in spite of her present condition, still 
shone out from within and allowed itself to appear in all the 
expressions of her face.” 


The picture of the distraught little queen, her dark 
hair tumbled over her face, her loose garment slipping 
from her shoulders, as she crouches at the feet of this 
cold, unhealthy-looking man, who stands somewhat 
awkwardly before her, is one which must distress the 
mind of the historian who has watched the course of 
Cleopatra’s warfare against the representative of Rome. 
Yet in this scene we are able to discern her but stripped 
of the regal and formal accessories which have often 
caused her to appear more imposing and awe-inspiring 
than actually her character justified. She was essen- 
tially a woman, and now, in her condition of physical 
weakness, she acted precisely as any other overwrought 
member of her sex might have behaved under similar 
circumstances. Her wonderful pluck had almost 
deserted her, and her persistence of purpose was lost 
in the wreck of all her hopes. We have often heard her 
described as a calculating woman, who lived her life in 
studied and callous voluptuousness, and who died in 
unbending dignity; but, as I have tried to indicate in 
this volume, the queen’s nature was essentially feminine 
—highly strung, and liable to rapid changes from joy 
to despair. Keen, dependent, and fearless though 
she was, she was never a completely self-reliant woman, 
and in circumstances such as those which are now being 
recorded, we obtain a view of her character, which 


426 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


shows her to have been capable of needing desperately 
the help and sympathy of others. 

Octavian raised her to her feet, and assisting her 
once more on to her bed, sat himself down beside her. 
At first she talked to him in a rambling manner, justify- 
ing her past movements, and attributing certain actions, 
such, I suppose, as her hiding in the mausoleum, to her 
fear of Antony; but when Octavian pointed out to her 
the discrepancies in her statements she made no longer 
any attempt to excuse her conduct, begging him only 
not to take her throne from her son, and telling him that | 
she was willing enough to live if only he would insure ~ 
the safety of her country and dynasty, and would be 
merciful to her children. Then, rising from the bed, 
she brought to Octavian a number of letters written 
to her by Julius Cesar, and also one or two portraits 
of him, painted for her during his lifetime. “You 
know,” she said,* “how much I was with your father, 
and you are aware that it was he who placed the crown 
of Egypt upon my head; but, so that you may know 
something of our private affairs, please read these 
letters. They are all written to me with his own hand.”’ 

Octavian must have turned the letters over with 
some curiosity, but he does not seem to have shown a 
desire to read them; and, seeing this, Cleopatra cried: 
“Of what use are all these letters to me? Yet I seem to 
see him living again in them.” The thought of her old 
lover and friend, and the memories recalled by the 


5 Dion Cassius. 
6 Octavian now always spoke of the Dictator as his father, and he called 
himself ‘‘ Cesar.” 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 427 


letters and portraits before her seem to have unnerved 
her; and, being in so overwrought and weak a condi- 
tion, she now broke down completely. Between her 
sobs she was heard to exclaim, “Oh, I wish to God you 
were still alive,” as though referring to Julius Cesar. 

Octavian appears to have consoled her as best he 
could; and at length she seems to have agreed that, in 
return for his clemency, she would place herself entirely 
in his hands, and would hand over to him, without 
reserve, all her property. One of her stewards, named 
Seleucus, happened to be awaiting her orders in the 
mausoleum at the time, and, sending for him, she told 
him to hand over to Octavian the list which they 
together had lately made of her jewellery and valuables 
and which now lay with her other papers in the room. 
Seleucus seems to have read the document to Octavian; 
but, wishing to ingratiate himself with his new master, 
and thinking that loyalty to Cleopatra no longer paid, 
he volunteered the information that various articles 
were omitted from the list, and that the queen was 
purposely secreting these for her own advantage. At 
this, Cleopatra sprang from her bed, and, dashing at 
the astonished steward, seized him by the hair, shook 
him to and fro, and furiously slapped his face. So 
outraged and overwrought was she that she might well 
have done the man some serious injury had not Octa- 
vian, who could not refrain from laughing, withheld 
her and led her back to her seat. 

“Really, it is very hard,” she exclaimed to her visitor, 


‘‘when you do me the honour to come to see me in this 
condition I am in, that I should be accused by one of my own 


428 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


servants of setting aside some women’s trinkets—not so as ta 
adorn my unhappy self, you may be sure, but so that I 
might have some little presents by me to give to your sister 
Octavia and your wife Livia, that by their intercession I 
might hope to find you to some extent disposed to mercy.” 


Octavian was delighted to hear her talk in this man- 
ner, for it seemed to indicate that she was desirous of 
continuing to live; and he was most anxious that she 
should do so, partly, as I have said, that he might have 
the satisfaction of parading her in chains through the 
streets of Rome, and partly, perhaps, in order to show, 
thereafter, his clemency and his respect to the late 
Dictator’s memory by reframing from putting her to 
death. He therefore told her that she might dispose 
of these articles of jewellery as she liked; and, promising 
that his usage of her would be merciful beyond her 
expectation, he brought his visit to a close, well satis- 
fied that he had won her confidence, and that he had 
entirely deceived her. In this, however, he was mis- 
taken, and he was himself deceived by her. 

Cleopatra had observed from his words and manner 
that he wished to exhibit her in Rome, and that he had 
little mtention of allowing her son Cesarion to reign 
in her place, but purposed to seize Egypt on behalf of 
- Rome. Far from reassuring her, the interview had 
left her with the certainty that the doom of the dynasty 
was sealed; and already she saw clearly that there was 
nothing left for which to live. Presently a messenger 
from Cornelius Dolabella came to her, and broke the 
secret news to her that Octavian, finding her now 
recovered from her illness, had decided to ship her off 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 429 


to Rome with her two children in three days’ time or 
less. It is possible, also, that Dolabella was already 
able to tell her that there was no hope for her son, 
Ceesarion, for that Octavian had decided to kill him so 
soon as he could lay hands on him, realising, at the 
instance of his Alexandrian friend, Areius, that it was 
unwise to leave at large one who claimed to be the 
rightful successor of the great Dictator. 

On hearing this news, the queen determined to kill 
herself at once, for her despair was such that the fact 
of existence had become intolerable to her. In her 
mind she must have pictured Octavian’s Triumph in 
Rome, in which she and her children would figure as 
the chief exhibits. She would be led in chains up to the 
Capitol, even as she had watched her sister, Arsinoe, 
paraded in the Triumph of Julius Cesar; and she could 
hear in imagination the jeers and groans of the towns- 
people, who would not fail to remind her of her former 
boast that she would one day sit in royal judgment 
where then she would be standing in abject humiliation. 
The thought, which of itself was more than she could 
bear, was coupled with the certainty that, were she to 
prolong her life, she would have to suffer also the shock 
of her beloved son’s cruel murder, for already his death 
seemed inevitable. 

Having therefore made up her mind, she sent a 
message to Octavian asking his permission for her to 
visit Antony’s tomb, in order to make the usual obliga- 
tions to his spirit. This was granted to her, and upon 
the next morning, August 29th, she was carried in her 
litter to the grave, accompanied by her women. Arriv- 


430 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


ing at the spot, she threw herself upon the gravestone, 
embracing it In a very passion of woe. 


“Oh, dearest Antony,” she cried, the tears streaming 
down her face, “‘it is not long since with these hands I buried 
you. ‘Then they were free; now I am a captive; and I pay 
these last duties to you with a guard upon me, for fear that 
my natural griefs and sorrows should impair my servile 
body and make it less fit to be exhibited in their Triumph 
over you. Expect no further offerings or libations from me, 
Antony; these are the last honours that Cleopatra will be 
able to pay to your memory, for she is to be hurried far away 
from you. Nothing could part us while we lived, but death 
seems to threaten to divide us. You, a Roman born, have 
found a grave in Egypt. I, an Egyptian, am to seek that 
favour, and none but that, in your country. But if the gods 
below, with whom you now are dwelling, can or will do any- 
thing for me, since those above have betrayed us, do not 
allow your living wife to be abandoned, let me not be led in 
triumph to your shame; but hide me, hide me; bury me here 
with you. For amongst all my bitter misfortunes, nothing 
has been so terrible as this brief time that I have lived away 
from you.’’? 


For some moments she lay upon the tombstone 
passionately kissing it, her past quarrels with the dead 
man all forgotten in her desire for his companionship 
now in her loneliness, and only her earlier love for him 
being remembered in the tumult of her mind. Then, 
rising and placing some wreaths of flowers upon the 


7 Plutarch. It is very probable that Cleopatra’s doctor, Olympus, was by 
her side, and afterwards wrote these words down in the diary which we know 
Plutarch used, 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 431 


grave, she entered her litter and was carried back to 
the mausoleum. 

As soon as she had arrived, she ordered her bath to 
be prepared, and having been washed and scented, her 
hair being carefully plaited around her head, she lay 
down upon a couch and partook of a sumptuous meal. 
After this she wrote a short letter to Octavian, asking 
that she might be buried in the same tomb with Antony; 
and, this being despatched, she ordered everybody to 
leave the mausoleum with the exception of Charmion 
and Iras, as though she did not wish to be disturbed in 
her afternoon’s siesta. The doors were then closed, and 
the sentries mounted guard on the outside in the usual 
manner. 

When Octavian read the letter which Cleopatra’s 
messenger had brought him, he realised at once what 
had happened, and hastened to the mausoleum. Chang- 
ing his mind, however, he sent some of his officers in his 
place, who, on their arrival, found the sentries appre- 
hensive of nothing. Bursting open the door they ran 
up the stairs to the upper chamber, and immediately 
their worst fears were realised. Cleopatra, already 
dead, lay stretched upon her bed of gold, arrayed in 
her Grecian robes of state, and decked with all her 
regal jewels, the royal diadem of the Ptolemies encir- 
cling her brow. Upon the floor at her feet Iras was just 
breathing her last; and Charmion, scarce able to stand, 
was tottering at the bedside, trying to adjust the queen’s 
crown. 

One of the Roman officers exclaimed angrily: 
*“Charmion, was this well done of your lady?”’ Char- 


432 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


mion, supporting herself beside the royal couch, turned 
her ashen face towards the speaker. ‘‘ Very well done,” 
she gasped, “and as befitted the descendant of so many 
kings,” and with these words she fell dead beside the 
queen. 

The Roman officers, having despatched messengers 
to inform Octavian of the tragedy, seem to have 
instituted an immediate inquiry as to the means by 
which the deaths had taken place.* At first the sentries 
could offer no information, but at length the fact was 
elicited that a peasant carrying a basket of figs had 
been allowed to enter the mausoleum, as it was under- 
stood that the fruit was for the queen’s meal. The 
soldiers declared that they had lifted the leaves with 
which the fruit was covered, and had remarked on the 
fineness of the figs, whereupon the peasant had laughed 
and had invited them to take some, which they had 
refused to do. It was perhaps known that Cleopatra 
had expressed a preference for death by the bite of an 
asp,? and it was therefore thought that perhaps one 
of these small snakes had been brought to her con- 
cealed under the figs. A search was made for the snake, 
and one of the soldiers stated that he thought he saw 
a snake-track leading from the mausoleum over the 
sand towards the sea. An attendant who had admitted 
the peasant seems now to have reported that when 
Cleopatra saw the figs she exclaimed, “So here it is!” 
a piece of evidence which gave some colour to the 


8 The following evidence as to the manner of the queen’s death is given by 
Plutarch, and it is clear that it was the result of an investigation such as I have 
described. 

9 Page 392. 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 433 


theory. Others suggested that the asp had been kept 
at hand for some days in a vase, and that the queen 
had, at the end, teased it until she had made it strike 
at her. An examination of the body showed nothing 
except two very slight marks upon the arm, which 
might possibly have been caused by the bite of a snake. 
On the other hand, it was suggested that the queen 
might have carried some form of poison in a hollow 
hair-comb or other similar article; and this theory 
must have received some support from the fact that 
there were the three deaths to account for. 

Presently Octavian seems to have arrived, and he 
at once sent for snake-doctors, Psylli, to suck the poison 
from the wound; but they came too late to save her. 
Though Octavian expressed his great disappointment 
at her death, he could not refrain from showing his 
admiration for the manner in which it had occurred. 
Personally, he appears to have favoured the theory that 
her end was caused by the bite of the asp, and after- 
wards in his Triumph, he caused a figure of Cleopatra 
to be exhibited with a snake about her arm. Though 
it is thus quite impossible to state with certainty how 
it occurred, there is no reason to contradict the now 
generally accepted story of the introduction of the asp 
in the basket of figs. I have no doubt that the queen 
had other poisons in her possession, which were perhaps 
used by her two faithful women; and it is to be under- 
stood that the strategy of the figs, if employed at all, 
was resorted to only in order that she herself might die 
by the means which her earlier experiments had com- 
mended to her. 


434 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


Octavian now gave orders that the queen should be 
buried with full honours beside Antony, where she had 
wished to lie. He had sent messengers, it would seem, 
to Berenice, to attempt to stop the departure of Ceesar- 
ion for India, having heard, no doubt, that the young 
man had decided to remain in that town until the last 
possible moment. His tutor, Rhodon, counselled him 
to trust himself to Octavian; and, acting upon this 
advice, they returned to Alexandria, where they seem 
to have arrived very shortly after Cleopatra’s death. 
Octavian immediately gave orders that Cesarion 
should be executed, his excuse being that it was danger- 
ous for two Caesars to be in the world together; and 
thus died the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs of Egypt, 
the son and only real heir of the great Julius Cesar. 
‘The two other children who remained in the Palace, 
Ptolemy and Cleopatra Selene, were shipped off to 
Rome as soon as possible, and messengers seem to have 
been despatched to Media to take possession of Alexan- 
der Helios, who had probably been sent thither, as we 
have already seen. 

In my opinion, Octavian now decided to take over 
Egypt as a kind of personal possession. He did not 
wish to cause a revolution in the country by proclaim- 
ing it a Roman province; and he seems to have appre- 
ciated the ceaseless efforts of Cleopatra and her subjects 
to prevent the absorption of the kingdom in this 
manner. He therefore decided upon a novel course of 
action. While not allowing himself to be crowned as 
actual King of Egypt, he assumed that office by tacit 
agreement with the Egyptian priesthood. He seems 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 435 


to have claimed, in fact, to be heir to the throne of the 
Ptolemies. Julius Cesar had been recognised as 
Cleopatra’s husband in Egypt, and he, Octavian, was 
Ceesar’s adopted son and heir. After the elimination of 
Cleopatra’s three’ surviving children he was, therefore, 
the rightful claimant to the Egyptian throne. The 
Egyptians at once accepted him as their sovereign, 
and upon the walls of their temples we constantly find 
his name inscribed in hieroglyphics as “‘ King of Upper 
and Lower Egypt, Son of the Sun, Cesar, living for 
ever, beloved of Ptah and Isis.” He is also called by 
the title Autocrator, which he took over from Antony, 
and which, in the Egyptian inscriptions, was recognised 
as a kind of hereditary royal name, being written within 
the Pharaonic cartouche. His descendants, the Em- 
perors of Rome, were thus successively kings of Egypt, 
as though heads of the reigning dynasty; and each 
Emperor as he ascended the Roman throne was hailed 
as Monarch of Egypt, and was called in all Egyptian 
inscriptions “Pharaoh,” and “Son of the Sun.” The 
Egyptians, therefore, with the acquiescence of Octavian, 
came to regard themselves not as vassals of Rome, but 
as subjects of their own king, who happened at. the 
same time to be Emperor of Rome; and thus the great 
Egypto-Roman Empire for which Cleopatra had strug- 
gled actually came into existence. All Emperors of 
Rome came to be recognised in Egypt not as sovereigns 
of a foreign empire of which Egypt was a part, but as 
actual Pharaohs of Egyptian dominions of which Rome 
was a part. 

The ancient dynasties had passed away, the Ameno- 


436 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


phis and Thutmosis family, the house of Rameses, the 
line of Psammetichus, and many another had disap- 
peared. And now, in like manner, the house of the 
Ptolemies had fallen, and the throne of Egypt was 
occupied by the dynasty of the Cxsars. This dynasty, 
as it were, supplied Rome with her monarchs; and the 
fact that Octavian was hailed by Egyptians as King of 
Egypt long before he was recognised by Romans as 
Emperor of Rome, gave the latter throne a kind of 
Pharaonic origin in the eyes of the vain Egyptians. 
It has usually been supposed that Egypt became a 
Roman province; but it was never declared to be such. 
Octavian arranged that it should be governed by a 
prefectus, who was to act in the manner of a viceroy, *° 
and he retained the greater part of the Ptolemaic 
revenues as his personal property. While later, in 
Rome, he pretended that Cleopatra’s kingdom had 
been annexed, in Egypt it was distinctly understood 
that the country was still a monarchy. 

He treated the queen’s memory with respect, since 
he was carrying on her line; and he would not allow her 
statues to be overthrown.'? All her splendid treasures, 
however, and the gold and silver plate and ornaments, 
were melted down and converted into money with 
which to pay the Roman soldiers. The royal lands 
were seized, the Palaces largely stripped of their wealth; 
and when at last Octavian returned to Rome in the 
spring of B.c. 29, he had become a fabulously rich 
man. 


10 Strabo, xvii. i. 14; Tacitus, Hist. i. 11. 
11 This was said to have been due to a bribe received from one of Cleopatra’s 
friends, but it was more probably political. 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 437 


On August 13th, 14th, and 15th of the same year, 
three great Triumphs were celebrated, the first day 
being devoted to the European conquests, the second 
to Actium, and the third to the Egyptian victory. A 
statue of Cleopatra, the asp clinging to her arm, was 
dragged through the streets of the capital, and the 
queen’s twin children, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra 
Selene, were made to walk in captivity in the procession. 
Images representing Nilus and Egypt were carried 
along, and an enormous quantity of imteresting loot 
was heaped up on the triumphal cars. The poet Pro- 
pertius tells us how in fancy he saw “the necks of kings 
bound with golden chains, and the fleet of Actium 
sailing up the Via Sacra.’ All men became unbalanced 
by enthusiasm, and stories derogatory to Cleopatra 
were spread on all sides. Horace, in a wonderful ode, 
expressed the public sentiments, and denounced the 
unfortunate queen as an enemy of Rome. Honours 
were heaped upon Octavian; and soon afterwards he 
was given the title of Augustus, and was named Divi 
filius, as being heir of Divus Julius. He took great 
delight in lauding the memory of the great Dictator, 
who was now accepted as one of the gods of the Roman 
world; and it is a significant fact that he revived and 
reorganised the Lupercalia, as though he were in some 
manner honouring Cesar thereby. *? 

Meanwhile the three children of Cleopatra and 
Antony found a generous refuge in the house of Octavia, 
Antony’s discarded wife. With admirable tact, Octa- 
vian seems to have insisted upon this solution of the 


™2 Page 186. 


438 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


difficulty as to what to do with them. Their execution 
would have been deeply resented by the Egyptians, 
and, since Octavian was now posing as the legal heir 
to the throne of Egypt, the dynastic successor of Cleo- 
patra, and not a foreign usurper, it was well that his 
own sister should look after these members of the royal 
family. Octavia, always meek and dutiful, accepted 
the arrangement nobly, and was probably unvaryingly 
kind to these children of her faithless husband, whom 
she brought up with her two daughters, Antonia Major 
and Minor, and Julius Antonius, the second son of 
Antony and Fulvia, and brother of the murdered 
Antyllus. When the little Cleopatra Selene grew up 
she was married to Juba, the King of Numidia, a learned 
and scholarly monarch, who was later made King of 
Mauretania. The son of this marriage was named 
Ptolemy, and succeeded his father about a.p. 19. He 
was murdered by Caligula, who, by the strange work- 
ings of Fate, was also a descendant of Antony. We 
do not know what became of Alexander Helios and his 
brother Ptolemy. Tacitus tells usts that Antonius 
Felix, Procurator of Judza under the Emperor Nero, 
married (as his second wife) Drusilla, a grand-daughter 
of Cleopatra and Antony, who was probably another of 
the Mauretanian family. Octavia died in B.c. 11. 
Antony’s son, Julius Antonius, in B.c. 2, was put to 
death for his immoral relations with Octavian’s own 
daughter, Julia, she herself bemg banished to the 
barren island of Pandateria. Octavian himself, covered 
with honours and full of years, died m a.p. 14, being 


13 Tacitus, Hist. v. 9. 


a ee 


THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA 439 


succeeded upon the thrones of Egypt and of Rome by 
Tiberius, his son. 

During the latter part of the reign of Octavian, or 
Augustus, as one must call him, the influence of Alex- 
andria upon the life of Rome began to be felt in an 
astonishing degree; and so greatly did Egyptian thought 
alter the conditions in the capital that it might well 
be fancied that the spirit of the dead Cleopatra was 
presiding over that throne which she had striven to 
ascend. Ferrero goes so far as to suggest that the main 
ideas of spendid monarchic government and sumptuous 
Oriental refinement which now developed in Rome 
were due to the direct influence of Alexandria, and 
perhaps to the fact that the new emperors were prim- 
arily kings of Egypt. Egyptian artists and artisans 
swarmed over the sea to Italy, and the hundreds of 
Romans who had snatched estates for themselves in 
Egypt travelled frequently to that country on business, 
and unconsciously familiarised themselves with its 
arts and crafts. Alexandrian sculpture and painting 
was seen in every villa, and the poetry and literature 
of the Alexandrian school were read by all fashionable 
persons. Every Roman wanted to employ Alexandrians 
to decorate his house, everybody studied the manners 
and refinements of the Greco-Egyptians. The old 
austerity went to pieces before the buoyancy of Cleo- 
patra’s subjects, just as the aloofness of London has 
disappeared under the continental invasion of the last 
few years. | 

Thus it may be said that the Egypto-Roman Em- 
pire of Cleopatra’s dreams came to be founded in actual 


440 LIFE AND TIMES OF CLEOPATRA 


fact, with this difference, that its monarchs were sprung 
from the line of Octavian, Cesar’s nephew, and not 
from that of Cesarion, Cesar’s son. But while Egypt 
and Alexandria thus played such an important part in 
the creation of the Roman monarchy, the memory of 
Cleopatra, from whose brain and whose influence the 
new life had proceeded, was yearly more painfully 
vilified. She came to be the enemy of this Orientalised 
Rome, which still thought itself Occidental; and her 
struggle with Octavian was remembered as the evil 
crisis through which the party of the Cesars had 
passed. Abuse was heaped upon her, and stories were 
invented in regard to her licentious habits. It is upon 
this secure basis that the world’s estimate of the 
character of Cleopatra is founded; and it 1s necessary 
for every student of these times at the outset of his 
studies to rid his mind of the impression which he will 
have obtained from these polluted sources. Having 
shut out from his memory the stinging words of Proper- 
tius, and the fierce lines of Horace, written in the 
excess of his joy at the close of the period of warfare 
which had endangered his little country estate, the 
reader will be in a position to judge whether the inter- 
pretation of Cleopatra’s character and actions, which 
I have laid before him, is to be considered as unduly 
lenient, and whether I have made unfair use of the 
merciful prerogative of the historian, in behalf of an 
often lonely and sorely tried woman, who fought all 
her life for the fulfilment of a patriotic and splendid 
ambition, and who died in a manner “befitting the 
descendant of so many kings.”’ 


ee a eS ee ee a eS ee = 


INDEX 


Actium, battle of, 348-374 
Agrippa, King, 39 
Albinus, D. B., 200, 202 
Alexander the Great, 153 
Alexandria, city of, 19-43 
library at, 13, 29 
Palace at, 316-317 
** Alexandrian School,’”’ 42 
Antony, Marc ~ 
and Cesarion, 328-329 
and Cleopatra, 240-414 
Autocrator of the East, 287 
burial, 421 
celebrates his Triumph over Ar- 
menia in Alexandria, 309-312 
character of, 217-239 
death of, 411-414 
decline of, 325-347 
fails in Parthian Expedition, 294- 
299 
first parting from Cleopatra, 271 
follows Cleopatra during Battle of 
Actium, 369 
life at Alexandria with Cleopatra, 
318-324 
manners of the Alexandrians 
adopted by Antony, 260 
marriage with Cleopatra, 286-290 
marriage with Octavia, 276 
prepares for overthrow of 
Octavian, 300-324 
other references at 3, 11-14, 155, 
162, 168, 187, 188, 190-191, 203- 
210 and passim 
Antyllus, 336 
Aphrodite, 16 
Archelaus, 61, 232 
Archesilaus, 152 
Aristobulus, 233 
Arsinoe, Princess, 15, 63, 84, 111, 121, 
122, 144, 145, 149, 251-253 
Artavasdes, King, 15, 231, 303, 307- 
312, 378, 379 
Auletes (Ptolemy XIII), 54-65 


Balbus, 180, 191 
Banquets, 264-266 


441 


Berenice IV, 58, 61, 62, 64, 68 

Bibulus, Marcus Calpurnius, 
68 

Brutus, 77, 192-196, 200, 202-205, 
210, 219-221, 231 

Byron, 8 


67- 


Cesar, Julius 
and death of Pompey, 76-77 
assassination, 203-205 
belief in the divinity of his person, 
174 
character sketch, 88-101 
conspiracy. to ‘assassinate, 195- 
204 
expedition up the Nile, 137 
leaves Egypt, 122-141 
places statue of Cleopatra in 
Temple, 152-154 
plans conquest of the East, 157 
subject to epileptic seizures, 151 
summons Ptolemy and Cleopatra, 
82-83 
takes up residence at Alexandria, 
78 


takes up residence in_ besieged 
Palace in Alexandria, 102-121 
will, 205-206 
other references at 3-4, 10-17, 56, 
57, 71, 76-79, and passim 
Cesarion, Cleopatra’s son (Ptolemy 
XVI), 10, 12, 44, 327, 328 
born, 139 
executed, 434 
given title of King of Kings by 
Antony, 313 
Calendar, 157 
Calpurnia, 146, 148, 180, 181, 197, 
199, 200, 201, 205 
Calvinus, Domitius, 142 
Caracalla, 40 
Casca, 203-204 
Cassius, 8, 10, 11, 192, 195, 210, 219- 
220 
Cato, 57, 58, 150, 155 
Cicero, 9, 13, 52, 95, 154, 155, 164, 
173, 176, 183, 211, 218, 222, 236 
Cinna, 205 


442 


Cleopatra VII 
and Antony, 240-414 
and Cicero, 176 
and Julius Cesar, 3-4, 10-163, 190- 
213 
appearance of, 5-8 
at Alexandria with Antony, 255- 
272 
at Alexandria with Cesar, 102-121 
at Ephesus, and cause of dissen- 
sions, 332 
at Rome, 145-163 
attends Antony’s funeral, 421 
birth and early years, 44-69 
character of, 7-18, 133 
death of, 431 
desires divorce of Octavia, 333, 335 
dress of, 45 
gives birth to twins, 273; to fourth 
child, 294 
is carried into Cesar’s presence, 86 
mausoleum, 404 
not an Egyptian, 19 
prepares for overthrow of Octavian, 
300-324 
proposal to murder her by Herod, 
292 
quarrels with Antony, 358; with her 
brother, 68 
returns to Egypt, 211 
sails to Syria to meet Antony, 286 
statue placed in Temple in Rome, 
152-154 
succeeds jointly to the throne with 
her brother, 65 
visited by Octavian, 424 
other references throughout the 
book 
Cleopatra’s Needle, 138 
Clodius, 57, 95, 233, 248 
Cornelia, 72, 75, 77 
Cyprus, 106, 107 


Dellius, 221, 239, 352, 362 

Demetrius, 50 

Dion, Chrysostom, 38, 41 

Dioscorides, 13 

Dolabella, Publius C., 191, 210, 219, 
236 

Drunkenness, 50 


Eating, 264-265 

Egypto-Roman Monarchy, 164-189 
Eleusis, 31 

Ephesus, 325 

Eunoe, 146 


Florus, 14 
Fulvia, 275 


Gabinius, Aulus, 61, 62 
Ganymedes, 144-145, 149 


INDEX 


Hadrian, 39, 40 
Herod, 290-292, 386 


Inimitable Livers, 264, 391 
Isis, 16 


Jericho, 292 

Josephus, 10, 16, 292 
Julian calendar, 157 
Julius Cesar. See Cesar. 


Kinglake, 125 


Lepidus, 199, 218, 220, 232, 235, 276 
301 


Libraries, 178 

Library at Alexandria, 13, 29, 108 
Library at Pergamum, 341 
Lucilius, 231, 232, 373 


Mahaffy, 49 

Marc Antony. See Antony. 
Marcellus, 277 

Mommsen, 11-12, 56, 101, 166, 174 


Napoleon, 153, 159 
Nicknames, 39 
Nilus, 42 


Octavia (Antony’s wife), 7, 276, 283, 
284, 304-305, 308, 333, 335-338 
Octavian, 3, 181, 198, 209-212, 217- 
221, 255, 256, 274, 275, 279-282, 
285, 290, 303-307, 315, 320-323, 

327, 330, 332, 333, 338, 345 

character sketch, 279 

declares war against Cleopatra, 

342-343 

returns to Italy, 387 

visits Cleopatra, 424 

war with Egypt, 395-440 
Olympus, Cleopatra’s doctor, 3, 423 
Oman, Sir Charles, 92 


Parthian Expedition of Antony, 294- 
299 

Pelusium, 70, 71 

Pergamum, 341 

Pharnakes, 142 

Pharos, Island of, 27-29 

Philippi, Battle of, 220 

Philodemus the Epicurean, 96 

Photinus, 13 

Plancus, 340 

Pliny, 9 

Plutarch, 3, 7-9, 46, 73, 86, 93, 95, 
162, 179, 199, 222, 223, 225, 230, 
233, 234, 235, 259, 263, 271, 284, 
297, 298, 334, 364, 368, 372, 379 

Polybius, 36, 38, 48 





INDEX 


Pompeius, Sextus, 277, 280, 281, 301, 
302 

Pompey, 55, 59, 60, 70-73, 74-80, 193 

Potheinos, 73, 77 

Ptolemies, not Egyptians, 44-46 
dynasty of, 47-69 
murders by, 48-49 

Ptolemy XIII (Auletes), 48, 50-65 

Ptolemy XIV, 63, 65, 66, 70 

Ptolemy XV, Cleopatra’s brother, 
15, 63, 104, 118-121, 146, 172 

Ptolemy XVI, Cleopatra’s 
See Ceesarion. 

Public Libraries, 178 


son. 


Rabirius Postumus, 62, 63 
Rufinus, 100 


Scipio Africanus, 49 


443 


Septimius, 74, 75 

Serapion, 252 

Serapis, 38 

Sibylline Books, 60, 61, 301 
Sosigenes, 13 

Sostratus of Cnidus, 27 
Strabo, 30, 32, 34 
Suetonius, 139, 189 


Tatius, 34 

Theocritus, 34 

Theodotus of Chios, 73, 77 
Titius, 340, 350 
Triumvirate, 218, 281, 322 


Velleius, 340 

“Veni, vidi, vict,’’ 143, 150 
Vercingetorix, 149 
Vespasian, 39 


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